Originally Posted by infinitium

Checked bags -- yep, I had checked bags at LAS, all the way to SIN.
Given I missed my long-haul connection SFO-SIN, my bags were stuck in SFO. I had to trundle all the way to UA's baggage office @ SFO upon arrival, and to get them to retrieve for me.
The entire process took about 5 hours. (no typo there).

I filed the baggage retrieval request at 11:00pm. Sat at the bag carousell for the next 3 hours waiting in vain. Decided at 1:00am to abandon all hope, and made my way to the Hyatt SFO (which my corp travel agent had booked for me) to get some sleep.

Woke the next morning, checked my AirTag tracker and saw the bag had made its way from purgatory back to the UA baggage office, so I AirTrain'd back to T3's UA office to retrieve the bag. Fun times.

"I suspect the costs were a fare difference." -- again, yep... you are likely right. I'll reconfirm later today when my corp travel agent sends me their booking receipt, which has the breakdown of that $1,500 cost (which, for the record, is associated w/costs on rebooking the SQ long-haul, and nothing to do with the domestic leg.)

"But your travel agent let UA off the hook here. I respect your principles, but I still believe your concerns are misdirected. You’re asking UA to compensate your company for something that was out of their control." -- Good point. I don't disagree. I will lean hard into my travel agent to get them to claw back those costs... either via insurance claims or other backroom channels they have with UA.

"It is possible that UA will decide that the corporate account is worth the money and will reimburse the costs." -- possible. A boy can dream 😅
Once I talk w/my corp travel agent later today during my daylight AM, I'll email UA's top exec outlining my case and politely/respectfully ask them to make this right by reimbursing both overnight SFO hotel + the SQ rebooking charge.