I thought I should post the details of my experience with lost luggage over the past two days, as this is a subject I've never read about on FT; as a reference for anyone who may be looking for this info in the future...

I checked in yesterday, Friday morning, in Berlin at 5:30am for a 7:10am LH (well, Team Lufthansa partner) flight TXL-CDG, with a three-hour connection to UA/961 CDG-SFO. I checked one bag, a roller board that I usually carry on but didn't want to have to deal with while transiting CDG.

In the boarding area for the TXL-CDG flight, the agents announced that there was a fuelers strike at CDG (ah, love the French...) and that no luggage would be carried on our flight, as they wanted to reserve fuel to be able to fly back CDG-TXL. Passengers only, no bags. Ugh. Boarding the flight I already knew that there was going to be a big bag issue.

At CDG, I notified UA that my bag wouldn't be making the connection. I asked to open up a lost luggage file, but they said I couldn't do that until I got to my final destination airport. Additionally, they said, until that file was opened, the bag couldn't be re-routed onto any other carrier besides UA (!?!?) and essentially the process of moving my bag couldn't be started. (Also of note: once the file is open, UA can have any airline fly the bag-- AF, LH, etc.--whoever's most expeditious.) Not wanting the 12 hours of my CDG-SFO flight to be wasted with no movement on my bag, I found a UA CDG supervisor who agreed to open the file.

On landing at SFO, I found an international concierge, who went to a computer terminal with me immediately and gave me paperwork to fill out, even though the file was already open in the computer. She checked to see if there had been any additional notation in my record about it-- there had not been. The bag had now been lost for 15 hours or so.

At 7pm SFO time, I called UA to check the status of the bag. (BTW, they repeatedly claimed that there's no 1K line for lost bags, but I'm certain there is one... am I wrong?) (Also BTW, the automated system was useless with my claim--always forwarded me to a live agent after I'd taken a long time to give it my info.) At that point, the UA agent said that the bag would be on LH/454, arriving FRA-SFO today (the day after) around noon. I was impressed they knew that much!

At 1pm on Saturday (having already checked the status of LH/454 to see it had landed at 12:15pm, early), I called UA. They said "you'll have your bag by the end of the day, and it'll be expedited because you're a 1K."

At 4pm, I called again and was told I'd have the bag by 7:30pm.

At 8pm, I picked up the bag from my doorman--it had arrived sometime in the previous hour.

30 hours after I landed, I had my bag back. It had my address attached on UA-generated cardstock, with my name and "**1K**" on it.

The bag had been rerouted TXL-FRA-SFO on LH. It had left Berlin at 2:25pm Friday (I left Berlin at 7:10am Friday) and sat at FRA for 20 hours or so for their FRA-SFO flight.

All in all, fairly impressive, I suppose. I wonder how this is different than what non-1Ks experience... And, I hope this is informative for anyone also waiting for their own bag.