My dh was involuntarily separated from his bag in Toronto on a complicated routing (MIA/YYZ/YOW/LHR). The agent in MIA tagged the bag through to LHR but he had to pick up the bag in Toronto to clear customs. He missed his flight(s) to YOW (plural because the process took forever) while they looked for his bag in YYZ. Therefore he missed his flight to LHR with me. In the meantime, his bag came to YOW. When he missed getting to YOW, they off-loaded the bag off the LHR flight, even though I offered to pick up the bag in Ottawa, go back through security, check it myself on my itinerary, and then travel with the bag (and my bag) to London. No way, only the original pax could do so. It took 2 days for his bag to catch up with us.

It was so frustrating listening to AC staff tell me repeatedly that "The bag has to fly with the passenger." I wanted to scream, "Then where is my husband? Where are you hiding him here in Ottawa since you admit the bag is here!"