username

I have had my share of delay bags over the years on UA. What I have found is that their elite baggage handling line are great - they are understanding, they keep you informed and they go the extra mile for you to make your life easy.

Had 2 delayed bags today and I found the agents to be very passive - defiitely not the "go the extra mile to make up for our mistake" approach anymore. Has anyone noticed it?

Thanks.

lhrsfo

I've had my occasions and, whilst I've found the UA agents to be friendly and helpful, the delivery agents have usually been wuite the opposite. No communication and missed deadlines are their modus operandi.

wtigerFF

I have yet to lose a bag in 2013 but in 2012, I got really great service the 2 times my bag didn't show up. I got a phone call after every step of progress and the situation even got transferred to the Chicago 1K baggage desk because the bag hadn't arrived by the time the 1K baggage desk who had been handling the case had closed for the day.

Renard

I wonder if the 1K Baggage Desk even still exists.... I'd be shocked. Does anyone know or heard from them this year?

ATXflyer

They could care less. They pass you off to a service that is unresponsive.

Bottom line, if your bags are delayed, you will not get delivered to your home or hotel till after 11 PM to the crack of dawn. It's very frustrating.

One is better off waiting for the next flight to arrive to get their bag.

exerda

IME it depends largely on whether you get an agent in Houston or somewhere else. (Shock, I know.)

I had a lot of bag issues early in the year, though the March timeframe. Back in February, the initial agent I spoke with was a "1K baggage" agent (self-identified as such) and she had great advice and did a lot to track down my bags.

The next 5 agents I spoke to were in Houston (self-identified as such) and most couldn't tell me anything more than the Web site, claimed that there was no way they could "intercept" the bag--that it was going to go all the way to its tagged destination, that despite missing the last flight of the day and being stored overnight at a connecting airport, there was no way for them to track it down and stop it. On the way back, they tried telling me stuff just to get me off the phone ("Oh, it's on flight XXX," one said, when it was actually in fact still going the opposite direction on flight YYY...), or, "It's with the delivery service now, and they will be contacting you." (It most assuredly was not.)

I finally got another guy who identified himself as a "1K baggage" agent, and he was livid on my behalf about everything and managed to at least figure out where the bag actually was and did everything he could to get it expedited to me.

username

Well, I had my 2nd lost bag in 8 days - really! This time, I actually just got a call from the "Corporate Office" in Houston informing me my bag is coming and apologizing...

21A

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 4.2.2; en-us; Galaxy Nexus Build/JDQ39) AppleWebKit/534.30 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/534.30)

When are we going to see customer-visible bag tracking, like on DL? Get on this, United...

danville 1K

My recent experience was mixed. Flew into AUS on an RJ and was driving the final distance to SAT. On the jetway was preoccupied with email and when the final bag came off it was similar to mine but not exact. Another PAX had grabbed mine by mistake.

Headed down to baggage claim to sort it out with the baggage office. Stood there for 10 minutes in front of the agent who was on the phone with another agent regarding a 1K who was waiting for his bag somewhere. The entire conversation was not about how to best get the bag to the customer, but rather who was going to take the hit for the lost bag. Agent in front of me kept insisting they had paged the customer three times so it wasn't their fault and they weren't taking the hit. Call ended mid-sentence, so I assume the agent on the other end hung up on her. In the meantime the customer in front of her (me) stood there cooling his jets. Guess debating taking the hit was more important than getting the bag back to the customer.

So off to SAT I go, sans baggage. Right after arriving at my hotel get a call from baggage services; the other PAX had my bag. Turns out he was also in SAT, so asked the agent to patch us together, ended up driving over to his hotel and picking my bag up, which worked out fine. Was very happy with the outcome.

The other PAX was somewhat less fortunate. UA agreed to send his bag to him, but only by sending it back to IAH and putting it on a plane to SAT, where he'd get it the next day. But it wouldn't get there until after he was scheduled to drive back to AUS, so he just picked it up at AUS on his way back to the bay area.

Given the drive from AUS to SAT is a little over an hour thought it odd they wouldn't just deliver it to SAT via the delivery service. My uneducated guess is the agent at AUS wouldn't do it because she didn't want to take the hit.

weirdlyndon

Seriously! For the 'world's leading airline' get on the level of other carriers and live track baggage!

I had a flight delay last week which left me with a 15 minute connection in SFO. I made my next flight to LAX by running, but my bag didn't. Upon arrival at LAX I went to the UC to track the bag, since if the bag didn't make it, I didn't want to leave the secure area, and would wait for the next inbound from SFO. Agent in the UC helped as best she could but could only see that my bag had been labeled a 'hot bag.' I obviously knew what that meant, but the info I really needed, whether my bag was in SFO or LAX, she couldn't see. Eventually just went down to baggage claim and had them deliver it to me.

exerda

The worst part is that clearly UA has computer systems which (usually) have that information; they just don't make that information visible to the customer. The "tracking" on .bomb is just ridiculously awful. Seriously, "Bag tracing continues" up until it's handed off to the delivery service?!

transportprof

An earlier posting raised the question of whether there is still a 1K baggage service station at ORD. I did not see an answer, and hope that some FTer who has needed help with bags this year can enlighten us.

And are there any other stations with a 1K baggage desk? My next hub arrival will be at EWR, so I'm particularly interested in that one.