UA and the other US legacy majors have repeatedly checked my luggage to countries where the bags failed to arrive with me. Thereafter, the last leg carrier on my ticketed booking with the delayed/missing luggage issue would generally process my report and arrange to get the bags sent to whichever country I was to be in at the time to claim them on arrival even when it has been in a different country or continent than any of the places on my ticketed itineraries. Not a problem — except perhaps time-wise — as long as the delivery address is not too far off the beaten track in terms of airports with regularly scheduled commercial carrier flights.

For what it’s worth, it’s sometimes taken much longer for my mishandled bags to get reunited with me when I am only going between huge population centers with lots of long-haul US and EU and Asian common carrier flights than for some of my trips involving airports with no long-haul flights and even some very troubled hotspots at the time. Rush-tagging bags may not necessarily get them delivered faster than properly/timely-handled checked luggage, but it opens the door to get them sent to a lot of airports without having to stick to the passenger’s ticketed and traveled route.