American Airline failed (me, at least) horrendously this week in their handling of the bagging system breakdown at JFK last Wednesday. Four solid days of no information, misinformation, conflicting information and useless (although exceedingly polite) AA call center reps.
I took Fl 619 last Wed, NY to SD 7:55-11:50am. I was traveling alone with my daughter as a lap-child, taking her to celebrate her 2nd birthday with her Dominican relatives. Despite getting in line for check-in at 5:30am I didn't make it to the gate until 8:10am, but didn't miss the flight since it was delayed. The check-in procedure was horrendous but at no point, though looking back it's obvious that they knew it at the time, did they advise that the entire flight (and all others that day) would be departing without a single piece of checked luggage. They announced it AFTER we rolled back on the tarmac. No option to not travel, no "voluntary separation", just "sorry folks, but we'll be going to without our luggage, but rest assured you will be compensated TO YOUR BENEFIT for the inconvenience". I read that as ticket voucher or something, but was after pressing the issue in SD I find that AA's intrepration of that is "$25/day after the first 24 hours." Holy bejeezus. Even then, nobody could tell me how or when this would happen.
Wed pm, Thu and Friday I called and each time was told to call back a couple of hours later. Wednesday they assured me all bags would be in that night and delivered early Thursday. Thursday I could not find an AA rep in the DR or US who could tell me where my bags were. I was alternatively told that all bags had made it to the DR by Thursday afternoon, and that there was no record of my bags. They told me that American doesn't have a bag tracking system, since that would be too expensive. No scanning system, everything entered by hand. Huh?
So my daughter's big birthday party (the bags were loaded with birthday party stuff, lots of $ to replace) didn't happen on her birthday which was Thursday, got postponed to Friday, then Saturday afternoon, then Saturday night. Despite having a decently packed carry-on, we were basically with the grimy clothes on our back for 4 days. Having no car, we had pack ourselves into the guagua and careened on into Barahona and back to get diapers, some clothes etc.
On Friday night I struck paydirt... I was told that the bags arrived and that one was dispatched at 5pm and another at 7pm to 2 different drivers (again, huh?) and were independantly being rushed in down to Paraiso. I could absolutely expect them that evening, I was told. Well no bags came, and I called all day Saturday until finally after 3pm AA was willing to follow up with the driver as to his whereabouts. The gave me his cell number. At 5:00 pm he answered. He was just getting into Bani and had a full van of deliveries (Bani, Azua, Barahona) before he could get to mine. So even though Amercian had the bags in SD Friday evening and despite what they told me the night before, they took 24 hours to even get them out the door.
My bags were delivered at 10:00pm Saturday night. I had to leave 9am Sunday morning to come home.
I don't even know how to take this up with AA, or if it's even realistic to expect some type of compensation (for the stuff I had to re-buy, at a minimum)... adding insult to injury is the $750 ticket fare I paid to go through all this...
Anybody else have a similar experience?
I took Fl 619 last Wed, NY to SD 7:55-11:50am. I was traveling alone with my daughter as a lap-child, taking her to celebrate her 2nd birthday with her Dominican relatives. Despite getting in line for check-in at 5:30am I didn't make it to the gate until 8:10am, but didn't miss the flight since it was delayed. The check-in procedure was horrendous but at no point, though looking back it's obvious that they knew it at the time, did they advise that the entire flight (and all others that day) would be departing without a single piece of checked luggage. They announced it AFTER we rolled back on the tarmac. No option to not travel, no "voluntary separation", just "sorry folks, but we'll be going to without our luggage, but rest assured you will be compensated TO YOUR BENEFIT for the inconvenience". I read that as ticket voucher or something, but was after pressing the issue in SD I find that AA's intrepration of that is "$25/day after the first 24 hours." Holy bejeezus. Even then, nobody could tell me how or when this would happen.
Wed pm, Thu and Friday I called and each time was told to call back a couple of hours later. Wednesday they assured me all bags would be in that night and delivered early Thursday. Thursday I could not find an AA rep in the DR or US who could tell me where my bags were. I was alternatively told that all bags had made it to the DR by Thursday afternoon, and that there was no record of my bags. They told me that American doesn't have a bag tracking system, since that would be too expensive. No scanning system, everything entered by hand. Huh?
So my daughter's big birthday party (the bags were loaded with birthday party stuff, lots of $ to replace) didn't happen on her birthday which was Thursday, got postponed to Friday, then Saturday afternoon, then Saturday night. Despite having a decently packed carry-on, we were basically with the grimy clothes on our back for 4 days. Having no car, we had pack ourselves into the guagua and careened on into Barahona and back to get diapers, some clothes etc.
On Friday night I struck paydirt... I was told that the bags arrived and that one was dispatched at 5pm and another at 7pm to 2 different drivers (again, huh?) and were independantly being rushed in down to Paraiso. I could absolutely expect them that evening, I was told. Well no bags came, and I called all day Saturday until finally after 3pm AA was willing to follow up with the driver as to his whereabouts. The gave me his cell number. At 5:00 pm he answered. He was just getting into Bani and had a full van of deliveries (Bani, Azua, Barahona) before he could get to mine. So even though Amercian had the bags in SD Friday evening and despite what they told me the night before, they took 24 hours to even get them out the door.
My bags were delivered at 10:00pm Saturday night. I had to leave 9am Sunday morning to come home.
I don't even know how to take this up with AA, or if it's even realistic to expect some type of compensation (for the stuff I had to re-buy, at a minimum)... adding insult to injury is the $750 ticket fare I paid to go through all this...
Anybody else have a similar experience?