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Airline keeps $15 luggage fee – even after it loses passenger’s bag

January 14, 2009

One of the presumed silver linings on the dark cloud of airline fees is that if a company charges for a service, it’s responsible for a higher level of care. But at least one airline doesn’t feel that way, according Sarah Yang.

United Airlines lost her luggage on a recent flight from Washington to San Francisco. She had paid $15 for the airline to deliver her bags to her at the carousel when she arrived. It didn’t.

At the airport, I was told by the baggage claim representative that the airline will deliver the suitcase to me the next morning. Not only did the suitcase not arrive in the morning, it took multiple calls on my part to determine the location of the bag.

I had taken the day off of work to wait at home. I expected the suitcase to be delivered, if not in the morning, then at least in the afternoon. The fact that it did not arrive until close to midnight after multiple calls is unacceptable, more so because customer service reps kept making promises that never panned out.

A $15 refund is the least United can do to remedy this situation.

Here’s how United responded to her request:

Ms. Yang, I understand that you paid for a checked bag but experienced difficulties during your travel. Please accept my apologies.

Let me say you are entitled to a refund of the fee only if you, involuntarily did not fly. We understand your dissatisfaction with the fee for checking a bag. Most airlines base fees on the cost of doing business at a realistic profit.

Although we cannot undo the circumstances of the mishandling of your baggage, we look forward to serving you onboard a United flight soon.

What a silly response. When you pay an airline $15 to transport a checked bag, you have a de-facto contract to transport your luggage to your destination with you. Not 31 hours and countless phone calls later.

United breached that contract. If it doesn’t refund the $15, the least it can do is offer Yang a voucher to cover her luggage on a future flight.

If it continues to fire off insensitive form letters to its customers, United will probably get dragged into court soon.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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14 comments

  • http://www.uselessbeauty.com Vidiot

    And when are those fuel surcharges going away, either? Gas is $1.99/gal in NYC right now, which is way down from where it was only months ago. I don’t see that fee going anywhere. I’d rather they just raised the fare and didn’t keep nickel-and-diming us.

  • Anonymous

    Maybe she can file a chargeback if she paid by credit card?

  • igeva

    I am in the travel business, and in the business of marketing travel.
    I’m giving up my Premier status with United, because they have lost my luggage 3 times during 2008.
    Don’t think for a minute that if you have an “elite” status you get better service at United, no way.
    From now on, I will travel with price based agenda.
    The bottom line is simple: there are no airlines in this country who care about customers. We shouldn’t care about them either.
    I will not feel sorry for any United employee after that company will vanish.

  • Michell

    Oh, $15 — she got off easy. I got held up for 150 Euros in Bangkok for an extra bag charge — even though i was flying first class and the number of bags checked was clearly included in all documentation. At some point, you realize you will miss your flight if you don’t stop fighting and just pay (I made it with moments to spare flying home for Christmas, so really, no options).

    Since KLM collected the charge in Bangkok, but Delta lost the bags in LA (all of them, not just the over limit bag), just try to get that money back.. and I’m a million miler on Delta.

    Going forward, I’ll be looking to Fed Ex and other package delivery companies for my luggage.

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  • http://www.tedsimages.com Ted

    I’m surprised that United didn’t charge Ms. Yang a fee for recovering the lost bag. Airlines desperate to stanch their revenue hemorrhages are looking for new and better ways to monetize every aspect of the passenger experience. Since lost baggage is increasingly an integral part of the passenger experience, it’s clearly ripe for monetizing!

    After all, airlines incur no small expense in locating mislaid bags, handling repeated irate phone calls from impatient and ungrateful passengers, and finally delivering the bags to the passenger’s location. Any decent person would agree that it is grossly unfair to burden the airline’s beleaguered shareholders with absorbing those expenses. And it would be even more unfair to burden the innocent, hard-working shareholders with the loss of the original fee for the checked bag on top of that expense.

    So I think we’d all agree that it’s only fair that the airline should keep the original fee for the checked bag, and also charge passengers a fee sufficient to cover the full costs of returning any bags that, for whatever reason, weren’t delivered to the flight’s carousel.

    A lost baggage recovery fee would also benefit passengers by giving them more choice. If they’re unwilling to pay the fees, they can choose to ship their bags through a third-party delivery service (thereby freeing up valuable space in airline cargo holds); or they can choose to travel with only what the TSA and the airlines allow in carry-on bags and then buy whatever else they need at their destination. And if a passenger does decide to check a bag that is subsequently lost, the passenger has the choice of paying the cost of recovering the bag or voluntarily abandoning the bag. So I think we would all agree that a fee for recovering lost bags benefits airlines and passengers alike!

  • http://www.twc.ca Stephen Pickford

    Definitely dispute the credit card charge. You did not receive the service paid for, period. In the very least, you waste the time of some feeble bent-over lifer in Accounting having to shuffle papers and explain things to the Bank….and, in the interim, send a “Without Prejudice” letter threatening legal action to their General Counsel. This was, as Chris stated, a breach of contract…and some enterprising attorney might care to entertain a class action suit on a contingency basis.

  • lily

    they’re losing a customer over $15? Whomever told her no needs to be fired and put into a customer service training class. So stupid!

    Airlines are going out of business b/c they have no idea what customer service means. They treat their employees like disposable underwear and expect them to treat customers with respect. UGH! I can’t wrap my head around their unwillingness to refund $15 and give you something to compensate for your time/frustration.

    United blows

  • MoNgo

    I like the part where it costs the airline more than $15 in labor to respond with the poor excuse.
    I receive spam on boycotting gas stations on certain day because of prices. Anyone out there think “a day without flying” general strike may have an effect?

  • Brian

    In regards to Ted’s comment from January 18, 2009 that the airlines could monetize a lost bag that needs to be located; no airline could ever do something like that. If airlines think that it’s okay to do so, why not just declare all checked bags lost so that the airline can extract even more money from customers. Of course, doing so, would be their ticket to court, and could put them in very serious trouble because the court would find them abusing the system in the name of profit.

  • Taxman

    I too paid the $15 fee to check in luggage at O’Hare. I flew from O’Hare to Honolulu with a flight change in Los Angeles. The baggage some how in Los Angeles was re-routed to Lihue instead of Honolulu. How in the world that occurred is beyond me!

    I am still waiting for my luggage and I paid them $15 to lose my luggage! Needless, if I do not get reimbursed for that fee, I will initiate the class action lawsuit!

  • Ron in Santa Monica

    My mother–aged 85–flew from LAX to So. Bend via O’Hare. I checked her in the day before, paid the $12 early check-in fee to United–and thought that was that. (OK: I know United: I was just trying to make her feel better.) The flighte from ORD to SBN ws cancelled and, after 8 hrs in lovely O’Hare, she go home. NO BAG. And by that hour, no rep was there. She called the nexy day and was told that if she wanted the bag in the next three days, she’d have to get it hersel;f. So she drove though the snow the 15 miles back to SBN. Refund? I did say UNITED, did I not? Maybe if I had paid the $15 . . .

  • http://www.nickelsgarage.com mitchel d

    I was traveling this weekend and in military uniform coming back from tdy and they still insisted that i pay the 20 dollar checked luggage! on military orders! not only did i have to pay the 20 dollars they lost my luggage 2 for 5 hours while i waited around at the airport for it…They wouldn’t refund my money either im hoping some1 will start a class action law suit and make united reinburse its customers when they loose the luggage!

  • nyguy

    After Delta lost my luggage for 18 hours, I simply reversed the baggage charge through my credit card company. Problem solved. Of course I emailed them first and got the same ‘you pay whether it arrives or not’ reply.

    Be sure to never pre-pay the luggage fee so that it is a separate charge, making it quite simple to reverse the charge later if necessary.

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