Hi Randy,
I am not sure if this is the right place to vent out my grievance but I will still write. I am in need of some advice.

My husband, my 10 month old son and myself had traveled on 22nd Dec with BA from Indianapolis, Indiana to Calcutta, India.The route was Indy - Chicago - London - Calcutta. Our flight from Chicago got delayed by 5 hours and so we missed our London connection to India. When we reached London, they put us on an Air India flight that was going to Bombay (instead of Calcutta). And from Bombay, we took a Jet Airways flight to Calcutta. When we finally reached Bombay, we found that all of our 5 baggages were missing!

As per airport rules, we lodged the complaint of missing baggage with Air India and took our connection.

They finally returned us our baggage 2 weeks later. 2 of the baggage came from Bombay and 3 came from Calcutta. The 2 that came from Bombay had more than half of the stuff stolen. The 3 from Calcutta were pretty intact.

For the 2 weeks that we were in India, we spent so much in buying alot of stuff for all of us plus so much of baby stuff.

After contacting BA in India, they said that all reimbursements will be done in US once we return.

After returning, the first thing we did was start communicating with BA. You can only send them an email. There is no customer service rep who you can talk to. They told us that they have closed our case with them and have forwarded our case to Air India. After emailing Air India (same with them as well, you can only write an email to them), they are saying that BA has not sent them anything and so they want all the details again. We sent them all details and its been a week or so and they are still investigating.

I just don't know what to do. We have not seen even a single dollar as compensation for all that we have gone through with a small baby. And now they are making us go around in circles.

What can I do to make them pay me compensation for the hardships?

Any inputs will be really appreciated.

Just a suggestion...BA has a lurker in that forum. You might bring this to her attention, although I think her forte is probably the program itself, she might be able to get your situation put before the right eyes at BA.

Sincerely,


William R. Sanders
Customer Service Coordinator
Starwood Preferred Services

[email protected]

Cast your vote! Visit www.freddieawards.com and choose your favorite frequent travel programs today.

Due respect to our host Randy who has been helpful to many frequent flyers, cutting through airline bureaucracy to deal with consumer complaints so pretty much up the alley of Chris Elliott. You might send him an email, your story may be perfect fodder for one of his 'fix my trip' columns.

As for your question of whether 'this is the right place to vent' you might get some assistance in the British Airways forum -- as Starwood Lurker notes, they have a rep in that forum, but the Flyertalkers there may have suggestions in working with BA Customer Service as well.

I appreciate your response but I did not understand what you meant by - lurker in that forum. Can you please elaborate a little more?

Thanks alot.

A lurker is an official employee of a company (in this case, BA) who provides concierge-like service to FlyerTalk members.

how do I find the BA lurker in the FlyerTalk forum?

You post in the BA forum. The lurker may or may not get back to you.

Greetings
I like Gleff's idea to send the concern over to Christopher Eliott.
British Airways is very difficult company to get a response from. If you can figure out a way to reach BA in the first place.
It was a challenge when I had too years ago.It can be done with great effort.

If I personally were in your shoes I would have never left Chicago without British Airways rebooking me on one of their own branded flights.
Unless I absolutely had to get there or else.Would rather leave 24 hours later safe and sound.
Or fly a partner that I highly respected and trusted.
I think you will have a problem collecting from BA unless British had a mechanical problem that day or decides to good will gesture you.The lost luggage liability falls on the last carrier that transported you.
In this case "Jet Airways" They are the ones you will probably need to contact to get compensated for your loss.Keep us posted.
Perhaps in the BA forum
Good luck

the 5 hour flight delay in Chicago was because of a technical fault in the BA aircraft. The hydraulic system was faulty. It took their engineers 5 hours to fix the problem. When we reached London, our connecting BA flight to Calcutta had already left. The next BA flight was not until the next day and it was not possible for us to stay a day as we were travelling with a baby and had limited baby stuff (diapers, wipes, formula etc). So we decided to take the Air India flight.

You just cannot imagine the state of mind we were in when the connecting BA flight left and we were put on another flight only to find out that all of our bags are missing.

How can BA escape without paying us anything!!

Other friends of mine who have travelled other airlines (Northwest), have gotten so much back in compensation when their bags were lost or stolen. They even got a free round trip ticket to India.

There must be some way for them to pay us.

Is there anything in the Montreal convention that will force them to pay us?

Does anybody know if any of these aircrafts (AI or BA) are liable under the Montreal Convention to pay us? I am sure there must be some terms and conditions that should force them to pay us.

No expert here but as mentioned earlier Christopeher Eliott is great at solving these kind of concerns.
If my memory serves me right all they legally have to do is get you to your destination. And they did.Emotional and physical stress or frustration are not something they have to compensate you for.You can get your money back when the delay is mechanical and over 2- 3 hours(if you choose not to fly) Or tell them who you prefer to fly on the day the delay happens.But after that shy of a meal voucher or a free phone call you are sadly on your own.
If I am wrong I stand to hopefully be corrected on that one......
That has been my experience.I have been in your shoes over the years it is indeed frustrating.......

I have sent an email to Christopher Elliot with my story. I have not heard back from his as yet though. I'll keep you posted if I get to hear from him.

I am surprised how you can tell me that the airline is not liable to compensate us for the delay and inconvenience when other airlines, like NW do pay their customers. I know for sure as a friend of mine was getting $100/day for each bag and he had 2 checked in bags. He ended up getting alot of money from NW. With me, if you make the calculation, $100*5(bags)* 14(days) = $7000. I should be getting this much from BA.

Looks like BA is the worst of all the airlines and they just don't care about their customers.

I really think you are barking up the wrong tree here expecting BA to pay compensation.

When you travel, the airlines do not accept liability for:

1. Mental anguish associated with missed connections, even with a baby in tow

2. Items placed in your luggage of special value

In this case it appears BA went out of their way to book you onto another carrier to expedite your journey to the best of their ability. If all had gone well with your baggage, at this stage BA should have been praised for good customer service.

Air India then undertook to carry you to Calcutta. You agreed to this, as you agreed to Jet Airways continuing the journey to your nearest local airport in India.

While the items may indeed have been stolen from your bags while under the care of BA at Heathrow, this is unlikely (though not impossible).

You really need to take this up with AI and Jet Airways, and the courier who brought the bags to your house.

Either way, liabilities are limited under the Montreal Convention (or Warsaw Convention it appears in this case, as India does not sign up to the Montreal Convention).

Either way, BA or any airline has no responsibility to PAY UP or as I prefer compensate you for your loss.

You should travel with travel insurance, or have household insurance or pay with a credit card which has some protection for such events. You also need to make a police report at the time of the loss. You unfortunately did none of these things.

You may be lucky and get some repsonse from BA, but as it says on the website the e-form can take up to 8 weeks to be dealt with, so be patient.

Personally, I think AI and Jet Airways are the people you need to take this up with.

BA have a system in place to deal with baggage issues; they do try their best but to keep costs low for everyone they cannot expend huge resources answering every query immediately; most people take personal responsibility firstly by carrying valuable and necessary items in hand baggage, and secondly by providing themselves adequate private insurance as should have been advised to your by your travel agent.

In this case I am sorry to say your case does not look good, although I understand this will have been a distressing situation for you.

Thieves abound, BA is not omnipotent, and although they tried their best it appears that was not good enough, and they were (perhaps) let down by either AI, Jet or the courier. My advice is to take your claim up with them concurrently as with BA, in writing, and to expect modest compensation rather than a pay out.

Moral of the story: buy travel insurance. That would have avoided the problems with getting compensation for lost items.

For others reading this, rather edited summary, my apologetic tone on behalf of BA is the result of knowing more and more of the facts of this case:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...ferrerid=24296

No they're not the worst of airlines, it's just that sometimes they and some of their customers seem to think they can do no wrong. Ever! In this case they let you down quite badly and I think you're quite right to feel hard done by and that you deserve a response at least, although I think expectations of $7,000 are wholly unrealistic.

I'll contrast that with my experience with AA. On a trip back from Rio my Samsonite case was broken and I encountered a 3 hour delay in JFK.
Outcome : I left my case with AA and it was repaired and ready within 2 hours and delivered to where I was staying in London the same day. I also received unsolicited 8,000 miles to say sorry for the delay.

Did they have to do this under the Warsaw Convention? No. Did they do the right thing to keep a customer happy? I thought it was an appropriate response to what had happened. My inconvenience was minor compared to what you went through so search the BA board (when it's back up), use the advice on here and hopefully you'll get some satisfaction.

P.S. You may have more joy using the word "reimburse" than "compensation". The term "compensation" tends to throw up images of litigious Americans.

Well, I cannot see how comparing your situation to this one is pertinent to this case.

A damaged bag owned by what I assume to be a premium class customer, with status, on one of the most regularly flown routes, in a major city, mainline, no language/cultural issues to contend with and outside of the busy Christmas peak travel period, who is savvy to the ways in which to get results from his regular airline to resolve this experience, which is altogether more complex at every level.

Alas, it seems to be questionable in its veracity:

No record of this alleged delay which "caused" the problem can be found. Perhaps the poster's dates are mixed up, otherwise I think this can be put to rest as a scam.