Long post follows.

Interesting posts about lost luggage and rude CO employees.

I had a very upsetting experience, but I found that CO employees were very courteous and concerned.

Flew from Ft. Lauderdale to Newark to Washington D.C. (Reagan). But our luggage (properly tagged) did not arrive.

I was in D.C. for 6 days of business meetings. Wife and I had nothing but what we were wearing on the flights.

Filed a report at Reagan with baggage service agent. Was told that for unknown reasons our luggage was not showing up in the tracking system. Apparently (??) it was not scanned in FLL, so it did not show up in the computer. (Nobody every could explain why our bags did not show up in the system.)

Needless to say, I was concerned that there was no record of my luggage despite the bar-coded claim tag I held in my hand.

Was told that luggage would probably be on next flight. We waited but it did not show. 3 more flights that evening from EWR to DCA.

So we went to the hotel with a promise that luggage would be delivered that night.

It was not.

Next morning I called CO and was told they still had no idea where my luggage was. They had issued a world-wide alert to all stations asking them to look for our luggage.

Very nice CO baggage agent authorized $300 (not sure, I think it was $300) for clothes so I could at least get something to wear to my first meeting. Assumption was that luggage would be found and would arrive soon.

A few hours later CO found my luggage. In Hong Kong!!

Nobody could explain how luggage destined for DCA went to Hong Kong, or how luggage could go half way around the world without a passenger on the plane to associate with that luggage.

Anyway, CO said it would take another 48 hours to get the luggage back to me. This meant no clean clothes for 3 days.

Immediately the CO agent changed the authorization to $500.

Went out and purchased enough clothes to make due in the interim and, eventually, our luggage did show up at the hotel.

Now, it did take almost 90 days for CO to reimburse me for the authorized expenses, but the check finally arrived.

I can say that throughout the experience every CO employee seemed genuinely concerned and tried to be helpful -- starting with the baggage agent at DCA and extending to each of the One Pass elite customer service agents who conducted the search for the luggage and who authorized and then reauthorized compensation for the routing screw-up.

I was very pleased with the effort and sincerity of CO employees when CO screwed-up. They tried to make it right. ^

socref