Originally Posted by
SusanTodd
If that's the case, it would certainly be easier -- and I have travel insurance that will hopefully cover the balance of the missing items. I have another day to wait until United will declare the bag "lost". I'm going to resist flying these small connecting flights going forward. I always felt that gate-checking was safe, but that's obviously not the case. Thanks for the information.
In fairness, it’s extremely rare for gate-checked items to go missing
en route. The most common time it happens is when there’s a weight issue on the flight and they have to remove some bags from the cargo hold, but we’re talking tens of thousands of gate checked bags per day, and most days would have zero issues.
Note that UA will continue to search for your bag even after they declare it lost, and you’d get to keep the $1500 plus the bag contents if they end up finding it.
BTW, it appears I misspoke; they’re waiting until 5 days have elapsed before declaring it missing. So, two more days.
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...e/delayed.aspx