Little known facts about lost luggage – Travel insurance

Posted by admin Articles Sunday, July 26th, 2009

Imagine yourself standing at the airport realizing your luggage did not come with your flight. Well, now you have to figure out what your basic needs are for the next days. Maybe you arrived at the airport in the evening. Luckily, you kept some of your stuff in your hand luggage, like keys, passport, visa, money and credit cards. And your tickets of course. Very well so far.

Your airline may tell you that you’ll get your luggage tomorrow, maybe, and they give you the lost luggage information sheets. At this point you find out what your rights are; very few! You have very few rights according to your airline.

The lost luggage information sheet
According to your airline you just have to just wait for your luggage. They do not care where you wait. They do not care if you live in this town or not. According to the airline they are responsible to deliver your luggage to you when they find it or get your luggage. At the lost luggage information sheet you find the standard blah blah apologies, we are very sorry blah blah. This will not help you in any ways.

The next information is the “we-contact-you-or not”. Here they tell you that they cannot keep you updated regarding your lost luggage and if they have not contacted you within a week(!!) you may contact them. Very easy for them to say when you are at your vacation with only your hand luggage. Now you also have to complete a “Baggage Inventory Form” and send it to the airline Central Baggage Tracing office.

Not until 45 days later(!!), the airline consider your luggage as lost. Then you may contact your airline or travel insurance company for settlement.

Luggage lost – What you need the next days
You may need to brush your teeth, so you need tooth brush and tooth pasta. Maybe you also need to freshen up, then you also need soap, shampoo and balsam. Next day you may also want to put on some other clothes. Maybe you planned to go to the beach, then you need all your beach stuff, towel, sun lotion and swim wear. Or maybe you planned to go sightseeing, then you need your comfortable walking shoes and hiking gear. And going out for dinner maybe?

Remember you cannot claim your luggage lost until 45 days later! It may get pretty expensive to buy luggage replacements.

Travel insurance
When you make travel reservations you should also be sure that you have travel insurance for your travel, if not you should buy travel insurance also.

Travel insurance coverage
Find out your travel insurance coverage prior your travel, it is much more work to find this information when you are standing at the airport without your luggage. At least keep the information easy accessible for quick reference.