AF lost mine about a year ago during a handler's strike via CDG. On arrival in DTW we were given a survival kit (including interestingly a couple of condoms - what do Al Italia give? A whole box??) and told that we could spend up to $100, on necesarry items. Actually they returned my luggage 10 days later, 2 days after I got back. So in fact I ran up around ~$350 needing to buy/launder business cloths for a week.
They paid it, but it took nearly 6 months and a buckets of original receipts/boarding passes by snail mail. Also discovered there really is NO e-mail/hot line for AF customer care. They want it all by letter. I did submit a complaint through KLM who still do have an e-mail hole in the defences, after 10 months they DID reply, and as a result a nice lady from Air France did actually phone me.