Often1

The Montreal Convention expresses the liability limit in terms of Special Drawing Rights (SDR), not Euros. That limit is currently SDR 1,131 which may at some point have equated to more, but has a value of EUR 1,342 today. That number will float over time.

I cannot account for the EUR 900 and do not know if you have submitted a claim as of yet. But, you should do so and provide the valuations proving the EUR 3,000. You will not receive more than the EUR 1,342. Bear in mind that you are due the fair market value of your loss, not the replacement cost. Thus, a shirt which cost EUR 100 and has been worn 5 times is not worth that much.

Any excess would be for your travel insurance.

royal757

Ok well .... after more than a month I admit defeat. AF just wired my 1350 euros and that's it.
My luggage is still at CDG and has been found but they don't want to send it back. No personnel, phone lines disconnected, no replies to internal emails. It's just sitting there, and will be destroyed in 2months apparently. I have given up trying to have them send it.

the joke of it all is the agent who took my case in charged and wired me the amount ends her email "we hope to see you onboard our aircrafts very soon and fulfill your every need". I'm a Start Alliance flyer, I had only taken this AF flight because there's literally no more transatlantic flights offered. Guess I was wrong to give AF a change after 9 years of no flying with them. Guess I still won't fly them anymore.

LondonElite

I had the opposite experience last week. I flew CDG to SXM and when I got there my bag did not show up. The agent seemed to know this and asked me where they should send it to. I was flying SXM-ANU the next morning but the CDG flight with (hopefully) my bag would only get in at ca 1430, so they promised to put it on the evening flight to Antigua. WorldTracer was a bit of a mess, but it arrived as promised and was delivered to the yacht that evening. Great service after a very nice flight.

royal757

So why did I get the complete opposite experience?

Maybe your Platinum status could help me get me my bag ... all I seem to speak to are people who barely speak english or french and don't know what worldtracer is.

Often1

There are no generalizations.

The vast majority of bags which are separated from a passenger are on one of the next few flights and then delivered. A smaller percentage take a while and a minute percentage never make it.

But, there don't seem to be any particular factors which cut one way or the other as to whether one sees one's bag and, if so, when.

Hopefully travel insurance will pick up any balance over the EUR 1,350.

LondonElite

Friendly, helpful, and efficient after service, bag was delivered within 30 hours of my arrival. I have no AF status and was flying business, which I doubt made a difference.

drvannostren

Unfortunately you're right on the money there. That's exactly the strategy. Airlines, even with covid have enough work for the baggage reconciliation folks. So when a bag like this goes missing, it often gets looked for on the FIRST day, right in that moment, but not after that. It's too much of a needle in a haystack situation. There's a few places where it's more likely to be than others, but still like CDG is huge and even if they looked at the likely areas they might still come up empty.

I dunno what that is, but it doesn't sound promising lol. I wonder if that's just kind of a sortation facility at CDG for wayward bags.

No it's not possible. It's possible it went from NCE-CDG then didn't get offloaded and then went to like MRS after that sure, but not more than 1 stop. It's just too hard for someone to not see it. There are some things in aircraft bins that look a little luggage-esque, but they're rare and most of us know what those look like.

The 21st day thing I would assume is just a date for them to throw in the towel. They don't have baggage "cold cases" or anything, the bags still may turn up but there's unclaimed luggage auctions for a reason. With no name tag, and no paper inside (tbh I've never done that, but I do have a nametag) even if they found it, they wouldn't really have much of a way to know to get it to you. It COULD end up in the reconciliation office, where they go through them one by one, but that's super slow which is why they don't really bother with stuff that's been gone that long.

Often1

The 21st day is specified in the Montreal Convention. At that point, the passenger is entitled to the fair market value of his bag and its contents up to a maximum of SDR 1,130. Nothing magic about it. Simply the law.

Most carriers use the same dates and limits for domestic tickets as well, although some countries such as the US have higher dollar limits.

Just to be clear, the number of bags which go missing for more than 1-2 days is infintesimal. Thus, most carriers got rid of people who engaged in reconciliation many years ago.

drvannostren

I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing here...every airline has agents who coordinate getting "found" luggage back to the customers. I mean we can split hairs about calling them baggage reconciliation, or baggage agents, whatever you want...but everyone has them. In any case the whole point was that while these people exist, finding 1 bag in an airport of size is near impossible, it usually comes down to blind luck or someone like me going out of their way to look for it in specific high chance areas, then still blind luck.

Landing Gear

I'm a latecomer to this thread. What is Le Kube at CDG?

Goldorak

an automated AF facility for delayed/lost luggages in CDG.
This is also the place to go for lost&found objects.

royal757

Day 45: someone just knocked on my door and had my luggage

.....

Ok this was weird.

No communication was ever made to say "hey we located it, we have it, its on its way, expect us soon". None of that. Yeah I'm happy they wired me the SDR compensation and that I got my luggage back, but 45 days? No communication? Come on AF

Goldorak

This is indeed really weird and it shouldn't be like that. But you got le beurre et l'argent du beurre so I am happy for you. But what a pain...

LondonElite

Bizarre. But all’s well that ends well.

brunos

Great to hear that you got your luggage back.

It is a pain that the luggage got truly lost for a long period.
Unfortunately it happens with any airline, rarely but it does, and you were the unlucky one.
On the other hand you got your luggage back plus a significant amount of money.

I am a bit surprised about your last criticism that you would have preferred to receive a communication from AF rather than an immediate delivery. The luggage was finally found by the airport lost luggage team and immediately sent to you by courrier to the address you provided in the file. They probably also notified AF, but kudos to them for acting the delivery according to their file.

And kudos to AF for a happy financial ending to a very unpleasant situation.