Don't check in bags with BA T5 if you want to ever see them again!
 

I checked in around 3 hours in advance. My luggage is tagged with 'priority' bag labels, I travel club class & have Gold frequent flyer status. Despite this,1 of my suitcases arrives last on the baggage belt after every other single passenger on the flight has received theirs & all the others have been delivered. One bag doesn't arrive at all. After having waited well over 30 minutes, I subsequently queue with a number of other passengers and log a lost baggage claim & amongst many others, experience service from a handling agent that would not have been amiss in the soviet era. I am at the time of writing this, still waiting for my luggage.

What action, apart from travelling with another airline and/or not checking in any bags at all is recommend that I do to ensure that my luggage is delivered in future? Why on earth would I ever contemplate purchasing any travel with BA in future?

Any recommendations suggested to follow up with BA? There's a rather anonymous tracing application program and the phone in the handling agents office does not appear to ever stop ringing.. Any suggestions to make sure that I actually receive my luggage? I am only in the one place for a few days anyway...

Appreciate your advice.

It is very likely your luggage will find you in the next day or two. Unfortunately delayed luggage is a possibility irrespective of which airline you use.

It appears you've done everything you can for now. Keep an eye on the website for the latest tracing information and delivery.

I sympathise with you

BUT I will not follow this thread as it has a dramatic and VERY misleading title

Sounds like you've got your answer.

Only one of these 3 things is related to baggage handling, inserting the other two just displays a sense of entitlement.

Sure you're annoyed, but really, losing luggage is just one of the hassles of travel*. You can act all upset about it, and you have my sympathies, but there's no reason to pretend like we're still in 2008, when losing luggage at T5 was really a systemic, rather than incidental occurence.

*I speak from experience

In over 15 years, most of which I was a non-anything with BA, they have never lost my bag and only one damaged, which was a work bag…

Other airlines lose luggage too.

I checked a bag in today at T5. I got it back at Dublin. Im sorry your bag didn't make it.
Brian

I'm afraid I say, check in your bags at T5 with BA, you'll see them at the end of your flight every time.

It is unfortunate that your bags are delayed, but your thread title is meaningless hyperbole.

I guess that I must be the only person who read the thread title and instantly recognized that it might possibly contain some slight exaggeration......

...... but I didn't realize that slight exaggeration is a hanging offense.

Which flight were you on?

Lost bags happen on other airlines too, including LH/AC/CX/SQ.
I would just claim with the airline and my travel insurance.
It will be delivered to you in time (not always true, but in that case, I got reimbursed for the entire contents of my luggage.)

Sorry to hear about your luggage.

I suspect you've been lucky if you often check your bags in with various airlines, fly enough to have an airline frequent flyer status and you haven't had a delayed baggage before.

Unfortunately a delayed bag is one of the hazards of travelling. I've had delayed bags with all sorts of airlines before. I have had two instances with BA when I wasn't reunited with my bag within an hour after the flight. However, both of them involved major weather-related disruptions, so that's not bad considering what must be at least 500 flights on BA in 10 years on which I checked my bag(s) in (hand luggage-only excepted).

My bag delay rate is much higher on some other airlines. The problem with "not flying with a particular airline any more because they delayed my bag" is that you may end up running out of carrier on which you are prepared to fly.

Regardless, the bag is extremely likely to catch up with you before long.

As for practical advice:

1) Make sure that you keep your current address (where-ever you are) updated on World Tracer website so that the bag will be delivered to where you are, rather than where you were.

2) If you do not have travel insurance that covers delayed/lost luggage and delayed/lost luggage bothers you a lot, then I recommend taking out a travel insurance that covers it.

3) If you need to buy something while you are waiting for your bag, buy reasonably priced essential items and keep the receipts so that you can claim it back afterwards (if you have arrived home, then you are much less likely to be able to be able to have them reimbursed). Don't buy anything that you would not otherwise buy and would be happy to pay for, in case they are not deemed reasonable or appropriate for reimbursement.

Excellent practical advice from LTN Phobia and others. I will add one other bit of advice:

- Don't overdo the chase-up process. Make sure your WorldTracer information is up to date, by all means check it twice a day (but frankly it will probably be inaccurate), then just leave it. You can spend hours on the telephone chasing it, but typically it makes little or no difference. Your mobile phone may (or may not) be used by the courier company to let you know about dropping off your delayed bags, but it's very much a case of leaving it to others to sort out.

As for your general point, if this was a point to point trip, no stop offs or connections, then you were very unlucky not to get your bags, that really doesn't happen very often. Connections are the weakest link. I always feel a bit left out in the "delayed luggage" anecdote department, it has never happened to me, but most of my frequent flying colleagues have a tale or two - but typically not that many of them, on the whole.

Stuff happens. Any airline, anytime.

I sympathise. You are obviously far too important to have your bags delayed by an airline.