Originally Posted by channa
Where'd you get the free RT idea from?
They need to pay for incidental items if he's away from home, and a percentage of replacement clothing (the theory being that he'll get to keep the clothing after use). That's really all that he's entitled to unless it's a total loss and they can't find the stuff.
As far as getting other compensation, I would call or write Customer Care after the issue is closed. That's because the case gets worse with every day that passes, so you don't want to write about a 3-day delay when it may be longer, and you could score more compensation.
Don't wait to call. Assuming you are elite CO will comp you $250 max for incidentals and clothing if your luggage is missing for 5 days. I had this happen in ANC. Sadly, we had to spend more than that to re-outfit ourselves for our back-country trip. But the luggage did show up eventually.
But you should get your claim number at the airport and then get on the elite line and choose the baggage services option and start pressing that you are expecting to have your incidentals compensated so that they note it in your record. In our case getting the check from CO was smooth sailing; just a couple weeks to get it processed once we got home. But we benefitted from having the baggage services folks note our records appropriately.