kiwiandrew

Hi

My partner traveled ex BRU on Saturday night BRU LH x/FRA LH x/JNB SA CPT in J class

he was told by checkin staff that his bags would be throughchecked to CPT which is apparently incorrect - he should have been told to claim them at JNB in order to clear customs . He queried this both at BRU and at JNB and was told no problem - he even checked the baggage belt at JNB before clearing customs and changing to the domestic terminal and no sign of bags so he assusmed that , as he had been told , the bags would go through to CPT . Well the inevitable happened - at CPT there were no bags . SA refused to even log a lost luggage claim as they said that there was no record of the bags ever being loaded into the system . They told him to call LH but he could not get hold of anyone at LH in the weekend . He was given no assistance at all and was left with the clothes he had been wearing for 20 hours .

He phoned me in desperation and I rang LH here in BRU who gave me a number in Germany where I got the only helpful person to date - she advised me that her records showed that the bags had been loaded in FRA for the JNB flight , and confirmed that he should not have been told that his bags would automatically go through to CPT - she took his phone number and told me she was sending a telex to her colleagues in JNB .

This morning he still had no clothes and no update . He has spoken to someone at LH who has told him to buy "clothes of first resort" for which he will be reimbursed by LH when he gets back to BRU , however, they have not given him any indication of how much money he will be reimbursed - bearing in mind that this is a business trip suitable clothing could be quite expensive and he has wish to spend blindly only to be told when he gets back to BRU that LH will only reimburse x amount .

Apart from the one very nice lady I spoke to yesterday at LH no-one seems to be the slightest bit interested in helping out a full J fare paying Star Alliance Gold member . The latest he has been told is that they are putting a tracer on his bags but as far as LH are concerned they do not know where his bags are - they are not even sure whether they are in Africa !

They have also told him that they cannot give him any phone number he can talk to about this and that he can only follow up by email .

Does anyone at LH who actually gives a damn about customer service ( and I do believe that there are some LH employess who do ) have any ideas what else we can try ? would appreciate a PM from anyone who has any useful ideas .

SmilingBoy

Oh no - how annoying. I guess you can be almost certain that the luggage is at the JNB lost and found waiting to be picked up and taken through customs. Or, stolen by the JNB baggage mafia (that's not a joke, it exists and is the reason why I wouldn't check anything to, from or through JNB).

SmilingBoy.

oliver2002

Have you tried to contact LH's JNB APO?

I'm sure this is a common problem and they have a standard solution.

kiwiandrew

Thanks Oliver for that number - I am pretty sure that he has already tried it but I have forwarded it to him just in case .

It is a shame - we both accept that lost luggage happens but what makes it worse is the lack of any sensible response from either airline - we have both had very good experiences with LH over the years and it is a shame that one badly handled situation is undoing years of good experiences

any company can give good customer service when things go right - it is the response when things go wrong that really matters

appreciate your response and will update if/when we get good news ( or indeed any news )

cdsen

The problem with luggage is (and it does not make it any better), that as soon as the gate agent attaches the destination sticker to the suitcase, he/she was the last person from Lufthansa that would touch it, as it is afterwards completely beyond Lufthansa's (or any other airline's) control.

roundtheworld

So here is what happens ( I know JNB quite well)

A) In BRU the check in tagged his bags through to CPT and checked them into the system.
b) in FRA they were loaded on SA
c) In JNB he arrived, and I know the Airport very well. It is chaotic, but it is announced about 20 times in the arrivals hall that passengers connecting to a domestic flight have to pick up their bags in JNB and haul them over to the transfer counter.

I can imagine he was tired and didn't listen as I said it is a chaotic and immigration does not help, as the lines are about 5 miles long. Finally once oyu are in the arrival's hall you usually are already late for the connecting flight. LH arrives in Hall A it is the more modern part but still a horrible little thing, and the information counter is so small you won't see it.
If the bags are not collected at the carousel, they are delivered to the lost and found. He can get the number from LH (LH won't have the bags)

the only way he can get them is to collect them on the way out. The lost and found is at the departure level quite in the middle next to the LX ticketing counter ...

The lost and found is actually probably the only save place in JNB, so he has a good chance that the bag will be there and the stuff as well.

Good luck !

kiwiandrew

latest update - now more than 48 hours after arrival in CPT

* still no bags

* lost property at JNB say that they do not get given unclaimed bags and
that he must check with directly with the airline concerned

* LH city office in JNB does not answer telephone

* LH airport office in JNB does not answer telephone

* still given no advise on how much he can spend for "clothing of 1st resort"

* no update on baggage trace

He has discovered that a colleague working for his company in JNB used to work for LH and is trying to get him to find out what he can .

He also has the PA at his office in CPT 'sitting on the phone' to LH in JNB to try and get someone to answer the phone !

let me re-iterate again , while not happy about the lost luggage we accept such things happen - what we cannot accept is the inability/unwillingness of anyone at LH/SA to give him information on what he is supposed to do in the meantime , or to keep him informed on progress towards resolution - several years of good experiences with LH are receding rapidly into distant memory

htb

If LH agrees to pay for his 1st resort clothes (and this is still unclear because the could say it's his fault), they will usually pay 100% for underwear and 50% for everything else because they're claiming that you get an advantage from keeping the clothes. I'm not sure if you can send them the clothes for a full refund, though...

This is what I've heard several times and experienced myself.

HTB.

kiwiandrew

He might very well try that , he is very fussy about his clothing and it is going strongly against the grain for him to buy cheap clothing to replace expensive but that is what he is doing since they still wont give him any guidelines on what they will reimburse .

On the plus side they have finally got back in touch with him , although the news is not good , they have absolutely no idea where the bags are and he suspects that the only reason they did contact him back was because a colleague knows another colleague who used to work for LH and they contacted somebody they knew .

Anyway , I think we have effectively given up the bags as completely lost so I guess the first claim will be against LH and then hopefully his companys travel insurance will 'top up' the difference as I am sure the limit that the airline will pay will be well below the actual value . He is a bit ambivalent about the whole experience , while he accepts that from time to time baggage will be mishandled it is more the way the problem has been dealt with that his frustrated him - when he has been able to get hold of anyone at LH they have been friendly and expressed regret at the inconvenience caused - it is just the lack of readily available information - unless you really persist they will not tell you anything - the onus is on the pax to constantly chase the airline for info rather than for the airline to keep the pax informed ... disappointing .

I am sure that they will try to blame him for following their original advise that he need not claim the bags at JNB , on the other hand it is becoming less and less clear that the bags ever made it to JNB in the first place - apart from one person who says they believe they have found confirmation that the bags were loaded at FRA everybody else at LH says that there is no trace of the bags in the system at all even from the time of them being checked in and tagged at BRU ... wonder if they will turn out to have never left BRU in the first place


anyway , he has asked me to thank on his behalf all of you who have been kind enough to respond with suggestions ^ you are all :-: s

Hamburg

lufthansa baggage + ONLINE tracing

kiwiandrew

Thanks for the link but he already has it , unfortunately all it tells him is that a trace is in progress without giving him any further clues as to the status of the trace and the LH staff in JNB have said that they have absolutely no idea where the bags could be . It has been more than 3 days now , they have told him that if it doesnt turn up after 7 then it is usually permanently lost . I think we are pretty much resigned to the loss now - I guess at the end of the day even though it is very annoying it is only 'stuff' , it can be replaced and it's not as though anyone died ( I think it might be a few weeks before I say anything like that to him though !)


It does make you wonder though what would have happened if he had become ill in FRA and not continued with his journey - would they have managed to find his bags to offload them for security purposes ?

I guess this is probably karma getting us back for all the rude comments we have made over the years about people who insist on trying to take all their luggage as carry on .

SMK77

While this might be true, it doesn't increase customer satisfaction:

UA forget to hand over my bag to NZ in LAX. NZ screwed up and put it on the next flight to LHR while they knew that I was on my way to CDG. Urged them to put it on the next non-stop flight to CDG. They chose to hand it over to LH (because they are "more reliable" to be flown via MUC. LH was not able to fly and deliver my luggage to CDG the same day. My luggage missed the connection in MUC although labeled with "RUSH", "PRIORITY", and SEN tag. Resulting in another day of delay, making it a total of three...

kiwiandrew

great news .

LH have just phoned him to say that they have located the bag ^ in FRA - whether it has been there all along or whether it has been to JNB and back nobody seems to know - in any case ( no pun intended ) hopefully they will get it to him safely within the next day or so .

wonder if there is any chance of scoring an upgrade from J to F on the way home in view of all the inconvenience he has had ? Do you think it is worth asking nicely