Is this enough compensation for 72 hour delayed luggage?
 

I wrote a polite complaint to Air France for a connecting flight with Flybe from CDG to MAN on the ground that flight was sold and labelled as J, despite clearly not meeting minimum expectation
-No Sky Priority, seat at back of cabin
-Weren't offered a voucher at the gate, told not eligible, had to beg for it.
-Voucher only a glass of water and a biscuit (see other thread)
I argued that I was fine with Flybe as an airline but these tickets should not be advertised as J but as mixed cabin or something more honest, or that at least a better seating/meal service should be offered.

On top of this, our luggage did not make the flight, we were told via email and via telephone that the luggage was taking the next flight back and would be delivered via courier on the same day. But it was Saturday, and the luggage didn't get to us until Tuesday, so 72 hours wait time.

Air France wrote a polite - but very corporate reply - TL:DR "we thrive to get the best for our customers and we are sorry you didnt enjoy the experience and thank you for your feedback". They credited 8000 miles per person for the inconvenience, which I appreciate. However for the luggage, they are telling me to write to Flybe and putting all the responsibility on the carrier airline. However it was a flight booked on AF.com and an AF# and the person who told me on the phone that my luggage would be delivered on Saturday was the AF customer hotline.

As I've not had a problem of this nature before I'd appreciate any advice on:

Q1) Is Air France right to fob me off to Flybe for my luggage related complaint? Or do I need to insist they take responsibility. Personally I'm not too thrilled at the idea of being ping ponged between airlines.

Q2) Is 72 hours delay something worth making a case about?

Q3) We did receive 8000M x2 already for this. It's not a small amount of miles, but I don't know if this is standard/generous of AF, or if they're just trying to fob me off. Should I be happy with what I got and give up? (It was a short Euro flight, not too expensive)

Any advice greatly appreciated, thank you !

AF is absolutely correct. It is solely the responsibility of the last delivering carrier to handle the delivery and other related service recovery for delayed (or lost) bags. To be clear, there is no compensation for the bags. Rather you are owed a refund for reasonable out-of-pocket expenses. The marketing or ticketing carrier is irrelevant.

If you want to make the argument that you held a J ticket and were downgraded and accordingly owed a refund of 30% of the fare under EC 261/2004, that too must be made to Flybe as the operating carrier.

What AF sent you is simply a customer service gesture. Anything is generous as it had no obligation or reason to send it.

This.

You can claim reasonable out-of-pocket expenses by submitting the receipts for the essentials you may have had to buy.

You should also see if your travel insurance covers late arrival of baggage.

This is my personal opinion and also based on "recent" repeated bags issues (last summer)
Q1) yes this is correct as BE is the last carrier.
Q2) they could have done much better for sure, but it could have been worse also.
Q3) this is certainly far from being generous, but I would say that unfortunately it is becoming standard :( Since last FB changes (april 2018), they have drastically reduced the number of miles given as compensation. They try to have you believe that it represents a lot of miles given what you earn with a revenue ticket (8000 miles would represent what you earn with a 1000 EUR ticket for a platinum member or 2000 EUR for an explorer member), while they should consider what is the value of those miles when you want to use them. And, then it's a shock because we are talking of about 20 EUR value. So it's up to you to decide whether you want to push them or not, depending on how much you paid for your ticket.
I forgot to say that, of course, they (BE) need to reimburse you for your expenses (clothes, toiletry items) if you are away from home.

To be fair to AF, they have no responsibility whatsoever for OPs late luggage delivery, irrespective of the cash value I think it is a generous offer.

Thank you all for the fast replies.

I will thank AF for the 8k miles and leave it there. Don't intend to claim for a downgrade. On all the other legs service was excellent and I did get 60xp total on what was ultimately a cheap fare.

I might just write to Flybe about the delay. The only thing I was miffed about is us being told that the luggage would be delivered same day, which led us to stay waiting for nothing. If only they had told us up front that "same day" actually translates to "next day delivery after your luggage sat in the airport all weekend" then I probably would have just shrugged.

At least we travelled back home light :)

Thanks again!

I don't know. OP said he was connecting in CDG to MAN on a BE-operated flight "labeled in J". This makes me think that OP was connecting from an AF flight in CDG, on a J ticket (as I don't think BE is selling J). So AF can clearly be at fault in this delayed luggage.

All claims have to go through the last carrier regardless of who is to blame for the delay, at least according to what I have been told by AF/KLM.

I would have been happy with 8000 miles but we didn't get any miles when our bags got delayed in AMS during a recent 3-legged trip to South America, also in J. We haven't been reimbursed for our expenses either (maybe 100USD in total). We contacted Gol, the Brazilian airline that operated the last segment as Air France told us to do (Air France had sold us the tickets) but Gol never replied and hinted at the airport on our way back that we would never see any money from them.

While AF can technically be at fault, they still have no responsibility as that falls on the last operating carrier.
And if we are talking technicalities, it's rarely an airline fault that baggage is delivered late, in most cases it is the ground handlers which have misplaced a bag etc.