Need Help - in Jeddah - Missing Bags -
 

I was booked on a UA Ticket IAD-FRA-JED-FRA-IAD in business class.
UA 952 got delayed on 12/16 in IAD. Missed connecting flight LH 592 on 12/17. The EU weather related cancellations created further chaos in FRA. Finally UA rebooked me on Qatar on 12/17 via Doha evening and said bags are being held "In Transit". Quatar assured bags are on the plane, I was in FRA for 8 hrs.
16 hours later, arrived in JED and no bags were found.

Quatar says it is LH problem.I filed a PIR (property irregularity report) with Quatar, no estimate on when they will arrive.I am on a business trip and had all formal wear in the bag. So decided to go ahead and shop necessities for a few days. I leave JED this Thursday.

In short, can I hope to get the bags before I leave?
Where do I start calling LH or UA or Qatar?
Does Qatar re-tag the bags or stay with the original?
The Quatar guys took the baggage claim tag for filing the report, but gave me the tag number UAxxxxxx. Do I need the tag to claim if bags are lost?

Appreciate any advice on this so that I can plan ahead for the worst.

I've been in this situation a few times with Qatar (and twice with LH). You file the report with the carrier that you arrive on regardless of who else you were traveling with and it is Qatar's responsibility to pay compensation or take a claim in this case. Your PIR serves as a receipt for the bag tag. Qatar has told me in the past that they will pay compensation to replace items if the bags are not delivered within 24 hours of your arrival. They do not like to pay or pay very much so you may have to insist.

LH in my experience is excellent with tracing and rerouting bags. If your bags are with LH in FRA they will most likely check on your location and route them. Since they have I think daily FRA-JED flights I would wager they will put it on their flight. Their baggage handlers in FRA could decide to reroute the bags if that makes sense and in that case they wrap a new baggage tag over the original one with the changed routing. There is a preference for a direct flight and for the original routing, so both argue for using LH FRA-JED.

I've found UA's 1K baggage service in the USA very helpful as a backup and with much more information than Qatar would give me. Qatar's attitude has been that when the bags show up we'll let you know, generally I find they get the bags in the property office about 2 hours after the flight lands. The good news is that they generally do show up. With the snow in Europe maybe it will take an extra day or two.

Saturday's FRA-JED flight arrived quite late. Is it possible the bags were on that flight and you'll get them today?

You can view the PIR status on the web and expect it to be updated around 2 hours after the relevant flight lands. In my experience QR does not update the status until they have the bag in hand in the property office. Other airlines might actually update the status while the bag is en route.

http://www.worldtracer.aero/filedsp/qr.htm

As I said I found UA's baggage service had access to a lot of useful information in the system (actual information about bags loaded onto a flight).

It's good that you are staying the week in JED. If the bags don't show up by the time you leave JED, file a claim for lost luggage with QR. But in general odds are excellent that you will get the bags back at some point.

Not sure if you did this, but any time you change airlines internationally it is a good idea to show the actual bag tags to the transfer or check-in agent. In some cases they will enter information into the system that helps the bags get on your flight. I'm not totally clear on this, but many agents have told me it helps.

In addition there is a bag tracker program/application that is on the star alliance website.. tried to get the link for you, but the staralliance.com site seems to be down...

I have used a couple times before and it has been very helpful; tells you where the last place you bag was scanned...

Thanks for all the information
DAY 3, no news. The reason Quatar have been giving is the bad weather in FRA and the backlog. I asked Qatar for a claim and they refused at the airport. I will call the local Quatar office.
Also, I did give the tag number at Quatar counter in FRA and was entered into the system in front of me. But looks like that didnt help. It could have not made it to Quatar from UA.

Sorry to hear this. Check the LH forum here for threads on baggage at FRA. It sounds like they are horribly backed up and taking days to route bags. Someone just posted that they got their bag in Europe after 3 days.

QR has agents in the USA so try pursuing your claim for reimbursement with them when you get home (even better if have a travel agent who can intervene with them). UA baggage in the USA may also be able to help you with both tracing the bags and getting reimbursed.

Returned Home JED-DOH-IAD by Quatar. Still no trace of bags. Got a file # from Quatar. I tried using the tracer, the Date Received is showing 'No information available'. Quatar says it should be in FRA.
Called UA Baggage service and they say it ultimately Quatar's responsibility to deliver the bags. So I am chasing Quatar now...

I would appreicate any suggestions

Sorry about the bags. I hear it was/is a mess in FRA.

I suppose you could try contacting LH to make sure they have a copy of the file and your correct info for delivery (the report is supposed to be shared with all carriers that may have the bags). I'm sure they are swamped, though.

Sounds like it is going to take some time. I doubt the QR people will have any info until they get the bags at IAD. Hopefully they will when the travel system settles down.

As you had posted also on QR forum (which is actually not allowed but in this case, its alright)...

UA must advise LH to reload your bag to QR. If UA failed to do that, then the bags might still be in FRA as LH would not have you on their system at all now.

QR can only find the bag when LH or UA enters the missing bag's information on the baggage tracker.

I have an annual (actually 3) insurance policies that help me recover bags as well as help pay for additional expenses when delayed. On one policy, I am covered up to $4K of expenses if my bags are still not delivered within 72 hours!

Thank You all. Apologize for the duplicate posting on QR forum. I was hoping that QR forum would be more familiar with QR operations even though I was on a UA ticket.

The bags finally arrived today, delivered by QR. They went all the way to JED and shipped back JED-DOH-IAD.

I had an AmEx insurance for 25 years, never had to use it, so cancelled it last year. Now I need to re-instate it or some other insurance.

Glad to hear you got your stuff back, finally.

-David