Delayed bag - how long to wait for a call?
 

La Cochinita had a couple of bags delayed last night. The automated attendent 800 numbers indicates the bags arrived at SMF this morning but she has not yet heard from the baggage service counter about when they'll be delivered. Finding a number for SMF baggage services hasn't been successful. Any ideas on how long it typically takes for them to arrange delivery to the house or should she just get in the car and drive the 25 miles back out to the airport?

I had a delayed bag that was supposed to be delivered to my hotel. Bag was scanned as arriving at 12:20 PM and at 9:30 PM I decided to drive to airport (6 miles) to retrieve it myself.

I lost my bag during xmas 2004. I discovered that the luggage service number is pretty useless. So, I decided to call the 1P reservation hotline and they acutally connected me to places and straightened stuff out for me. So, maybe you can just try the reservation line and see whether they can get you to someone that can help you. They finally delivered my luggage at like 2am one night. I was okay with it. They actaully called ahead and asked me whether I prefer them to deliver in the middle of night or during the day. Since I cannot be working from home during that period, I opted them to deliver to my place in the middle of the night.
Hope your luggage arrive soon. But, frascoje is right. If it is not too much hassle, going to the airport to pick it up might be the fastest way.

I figured out how to talk to a live person on the baggage 800 number; on the initial voice prompt choose the "other problem" option and that gets you a baggage services agent. The agent is able to contact the contracted delivery service company to find out an anticipated delivery time, which turned out to be wrong three times, but at least we all knew the bags were in the delivery company van somewhere in Sacramento. They eventually showed up around 7:30 p.m.

In retrospect it would have been much faster to drive back out to the airport to pick them up.

Glad you got your bags!

In my experience, unless it is a major major major inconvenience or impracticality, I will always go to the airport myself to get the bags instead of having them delivered. My reasons:
1. A subcontracted delivery company can take its own sweet time to get them to you, with lots of potential for mis-information (as you found out).
2. Having them delivered means another layer in the accountability game if a bag is lost or damaged. Count on finger-pointing aplenty!
3. If the bag is damaged, you can file the paperwork right then and there with the airline, and not worry about having to prove the damage was done by the airline.

Our recent lesson: We travelled BOM-SIN-BKK-NRT-LAX-CLT-PHF on SQ, NH and US. Bags were fine through customs at LAX, then delayed/mangled by US. Only 1 of 5 arrived with us, and that one came without ANY bag tags (all were torn off, including our ID tags). How it made it I don't know. The remaining 4 arrived the next day, US did not call to inform us as promised, and the 800 number for baggage said they couldn't locate them. I went to the airport and learned they were sitting in the office there. Of the 4, 1 was again devoid of any tags, one had a large cut across the side, and 2 had torn-off handles and crushed frames, as if they had been dropped from a height. While US made good by writing me checks on the spot for the destroyed bags, I shudder to think of the hassles/delays I might have had to go through if I had accepted their offer to have a contractor deliver them to our home!

The subcontracted delivery folks are a huge variable. I've had them promise to have my bag to me by 3pm (I came in on a 9am arriving flight that time) and not get the bags until well after midnight. Their excuse always seems to be, "The driver scheduled for today never showed up for work." :rolleyes:

Unless it's a real hassle, driving to the airport is generally a more sure way of getting your bag in a reasonable time. The delivery people in my experience have had no affiliation with United whatsoever, and calling UA doesn't do much to get the bag there any sooner.