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Princess loses passenger’s bag, charges her to return it

September 18, 2009

crownShould you have to pay the freight for a bag your cruise line loses? That’s the question Winnie Salyer asked me after her Princess Cruise.

Princess thought she should.

I wasn’t so sure.


Here’s what happened to Salyer: When she and her husband were disembarking from the Crown Princess in Southampton, England, earlier this summer, one of their bags couldn’t be found.

While we were looking for the missing bag for about 15 minutes, a baggage handler came for assistance. Since we had purchased a transfer from the cruise terminal to Heathrow Airport, in order not to hold up the other passengers (with the same group), we were urged to get on the shuttle bus and he assured us that he would keep looking for our missing bag and put it on the shuttle or the next shuttle, since there were many shuttle buses going to Heathrow, but different airlines.

The luggage never showed up. A month later, Princess found the bag, and shipped it to the Salyers, but charged them $69.

“They never mentioned the shipping cost which we have to pay for,” she says.

I’ve never come across a case where a cruise line — or any travel company — loses a bag and then forces the customer to pay for shipping. I figured Princess had a perfectly good explanation. So I asked.

Here’s the scoop, according to a spokeswoman:

When they departed from the pier in Southampton, they admit they left for the airport without one of their bags. This was unfortunate as all bags need to be claimed by our passengers. We’re sorry that they were given misinformation from one of the pier luggage handlers, who are not Princess employees and appear to have misrepresented the luggage procedures.

It further appears that the Princess representatives at the airport believed that the bag was en route to the airport, based on the Salyer’s report that the baggage handler said it would come on a later motorcoach. This representative should have confirmed this with cruise terminal staff but it appears this was not done.

In the end, their bag was left uncollected at the cruise terminal, and as we do with all unclaimed luggage, it was processed for return, with shipping charges paid for by the passenger. We did err by not following our policy of calling the passenger to let them know we found their luggage, and provide them with shipping options which would be:

1. Have the bag sent back to the U.S. via Cunard Line’s QM2 (one of our sister companies) to avoid international shipping charges and customs delays, OR
2. Arrange for the passenger to pay for international shipping charges and complete all customs forms, after which they would receive their bag in several weeks time

We agree that under the circumstances we should refund the shipping fee of $69, and this is currently being processed for the Salyers. We apologize that their experience was not in keeping our usual standards.

Princess recommends that if your luggage goes missing, you should make contact with an official Princess representative and fill out the necessary paperwork, before leaving the terminal. “This ensures that Princess is fully aware of the lost bag and can make arrangements to expedite the return of luggage to the passenger,” according to the spokeswoman.

I’m happy Salyer was able to get her $69 back, but the story isn’t over. Salyer also asked the Los Angeles Times and USA Today for help with her case, so she may be getting stories (and maybe a little advice) from them, too.

(Photo: unwiredben/Flickr Creative Commons)

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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26 comments

  • Koala

    Princess lost the bag, Princess should pay to have it shipped to the customer.

    The Princess representatives assertion that the customer is responsible because “the bag was left uncollected at the cruise terminal” is patently false. The customer was there, waiting to collect their luggage and Princess failed to deliver it in a timely fashion. Was the customer supposed to continue waiting and miss their flight from Heathrow too?

    Maybe it’s just easier to avoid doing business with Princess and go with another cruise line.

  • Marc

    I actually don’t see a problem here. The explanation from Princess makes very logical sense. I’ve been on quite a few cruises and sometimes my luggage isn’t always together and I have to go hunting for it. In one instance, I missed my shuttle to the airport because my wife and I were rooting through the luggage looking for 1 out of 4 bags.

    It appears the bag was placed in the incorrect section for customer pickup. The passengers couldn’t find the bag and they sought help from a non-Princess employee, who probably DID figure the bag would turn up at some point.

    When everyone had left, the bag was probably found by someone else and turned over to Princess as “unclaimed”. Princess followed its standard procedures, unaware that there was a problem. Only when the cruisers complained and the issue was brought forward by Chris did they investigate.

    While Princess was under no obligation to refund the (paltry) $69, it did so anyway as a gesture of good faith. The original cruisers now have their luggage and their $69 back, so I don’t see a need to belabor this issue in the LA Times (unless it’s as a quick note to say “Hey, Princess admitted quickly that there was an understanding and worked to rectify it”).

  • LeeAnne

    Marc – Um…maybe $69 is paltry to YOU, but I would be MOST displeased to find myself charged that much money for the return of my own belongings that THEY lost! How fortunate for you that you consider that much money pocket change. But I hasten to inform you that to the majority of humans on this planet not in your apparently lofty income level, $69 is by no means a “paltry” sum. To many, that would feed their family for a week…or longer.

    I do agree with you that the issue is now over, and follow-up by other media outlets is probably not needed…and I would venture to guess we won’t be hearing about it from the LA Times, since it’s not a particularly compelling story. But disagree that Princess holds no fault here. They stated quite clearly in their response that they DID handle this situation incorrectly, on a number of levels.

    The question, of course, as always with Chris’s travel troubleshooting cases, is whether or not they would have fessed up and done the right thing had the customer NOT gone to a travel ombudsman for help. In so many of these cases, it’s very obvious they wouldn’t have – that it took a little urging and the threat of media attention for the company to man-up and make it right.

    In this case, however, we really don’t know because it’s not clear from the article if the Salyers went to Princess first and didn’t receive satisfaction, or if they just went straight to the press. I’m inclined to believe the latter, given the number of media sources to which they brought their story.

  • Bob

    @Marc: I’ve been on quite a few cruises, too, and I have never, ever had a bag go missing when disembarking. This has all been on Radisson/Regent, where you put baggage out in the corridor the night before disembarkation, with colored tags attached, and then Regent’s staff picks it up. The next morning on the pier, we just go to where our particular color of tags is, and there our bags are. Never a problem.

    If a cruise line takes my luggage into their custody, they have a duty of care to deliver it back in a reasonable manner and in a timely fashion. If they misplace it or put it someplace weird where I can’t find it, that’s a failure on their part. And if a cruise line did that in a way that caused me to miss a travel connection, somebody would be paying for any missed transportation, and it certainly wouldn’t be me.

    Regarding following “standard procedures”, if Princess’ standard procedures allow them to misplace their customers’ baggage without knowing they’ve done so or being able to correct it without cost, that’s hardly the customers’ fault. Following “standard procedures” which are flawed is no excuse for screwing people who have paid money for a service in good faith. Princess is not doing the customers a favor by refunding money extorted under duress to correct Princess’ own error.

    Marc, what in the world do you do, that you consider $69 a “paltry” amount of money? Even though I make well into six figures, I certainly would not consider $69 a “paltry” amount of money to pay to people who had lost my luggage so I couldn’t get it myself, and then refused to hand it over without my paying them. In fact, I’d consider it robbery. There are a lot of things I would much rather do with $69.

    As far as “belaboring” it in the LA Times… potential customers have a right to know that if you cruise on Princess, and Princess puts your luggage in a place where you can’t find it, Princess considers it your problem, not theirs. And if your luggage has to be shipped to meet you because of Princess’ screw-up, Princess expects you to pay for it. I wouldn’t call that belaboring, I would call it publicizing a policy which consumers should be able to know before making choosing to cruise on Princess.

  • Eric Smith

    It’s episodes like this that have made me decide against EVER going on a cruise. This was Princess’s fault from the get-go. You’d think with probably thousands of pieces of luggage, they would expect some snafus, and have a company representative out there.

  • Jim_J

    I agree with Eric. Princess should have had an official company representative at the baggage claim area to deal with problems such as this. They stand behind the excuse that it is the passenger’s responsibility to notify a company representative that a problem has occurred. Logic would therefore support the assumption that it is the cruise line’s responsibility to have a procedure in place whereby a passenger can find a representative and make the notification with minimal delay. Apparently, no such procedure existed at that time at the cruise ship terminal in Southampton.

  • Allison

    While I agree that Princess should have refunded the shipping charge, I am more shocked at the emotional reactions to this story (even though Princess did the right thing in the end…) NEVER taking a cruise because one stranger had a minor problem? Intense moral outrage over $69? Really?

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  • Monica

    This sounds like Princesses error. In my cruise experience, the bags are picked up the night before from your room and wait on the dock when you disembark. If I could not find my luggage because their employees put it in the wrong place, I expect them to find it and return it to me in a reasonable time/manner. At no point should the passenger be expected to pay to get it back.

    On the other hand, the passenger should have attempted to get something in writing that the bag was indeed flagged as missing and that it would be returned in a timely manner.

    And I agree with Allison. I wouldn’t swear off the entire cruise line because one person had a small issue. It happens occassionally in the travel industry. File the information away somewhere and move on. I would never travel if I chose to avoid any cruise/plane/car/bus/train company that I ever heard about with problems.

  • Jon

    Why would Salyer leave without her bag? That’s just stupid. And talking to a luggage porter when Princess representatives are everywhere – was this her first cruise?

    I had a luggage situation on a Princess cruise out of Southhampton. Another passenger took my bag by mistake. When I couldn’t find my bag I found a Princess rep. They found my bag which was at Gatwick and I was flying out of Heathrow. Princess paid for my bag to be put in a cab and brought to my airport. They then escorted me through security and had a cart rush us to our gate as out flight was getting ready to depart.

    I am so tired of people blaming cruise lines for their own mistakes. Take a little responsibility.

  • Joel Wechsler

    @Jon
    Right on!
    @Allison
    Agreed.

  • LadySiren

    Late chiming in here, but geez…this thread is full of apologists for the cruise lines. $69 is not a “paltry” sum, especially after you’ve just shelled out for a cruise. It sounds to me like the OP did try to contact a person she thought was able to assist with the missing luggage; if you’re an inexperienced cruiser, in a hurry because your shuttle is waiting, and standing on a crowded, confusing dock, could you mistake a luggage porter for a Princess employee? Yes, you likely could do just that. And as for swearing of cruises because of one “little” disagreement with Princess, I’m sorry but this is just one more on the gigantic pile of dog dung that the recreational travel industry has become. Between airlines and cruises gouging passengers with fees and compounded by poor service, I’ll stay closer to home, thanks.

  • Nobody

    Everyone needs to look at the cruiselines from this view. Just about everyone that works for the cruiselines (like the baggage handlers in this story) are not employees of the cruiselines. They are contract help hired by the cruiselines and work for someone else that collects money from the cruiselines and pays the help some of it. That may be the same scenario you dealt with in flying to the home port, on a regional carrier whose planes are all painted with the major airline paint scheme and logo.
    So when you go to the ship’s doctor and he kills your loved one in undeniable negligence and malpractice, good luck trying to find this contract employee when he flees back home to Dashhowuz, Turkmenistan. The cruiseline will tell you that you have to sue the MDzRUs that sent this doctor. One who could only find work that required 12-months stay in a room the size of a jail cell (but with access to the medicine cabinet.)

  • Salyer

    We have written a long and details about this incident but it didn’t publish the whole! That is why you didn’t realize all the facts.

    (1) We have been looking for the missing bag over 15 minutes before the bag handler came over for assistance. Obviously the missing bag was placed at the different area.
    (2) We “admited” we left for the airport without one of our bags because we were told to get on the shuttle by not holding up the other passengers.
    (3) and because the bag handler made assurance that he would keep finding our bag and put it on the same bus or one of the later bus. We trusted him and tipped him too!
    (4) The bag handler put a wrong bag (similar but not ours) on the same bus.
    (5) At the airport, we reported this incident and returned the wrong bag to a Princess Rep.
    (6) Two Princess reps both said “under normal procedure, Princess would put the bag on the next shuttle, and they repeatedly made assurance that the bag would be coming on one of the shuttles.
    (7) With their assurance, we have waited for 2 1/2 hours at the airport until we have to get on our flight..
    (8) We DID file the missing bag report at the airport with the Princess Rep and we were told that Princess would contact us the next day.
    (9) No one called until we contacted Princess few days later.
    (10) We filed the claim again with Princess.
    (11) Nothing heard from Princess for 2 weeks, then we mailed a letter.
    (12) Three days later finally got a first call from Princess telling us they put our bag on QM.
    (13) QM docked and nobody contacted us until we kept calling Princess about our bag.
    (14) Finally the bag was delivered at the door but we were asked to pay for $69 which Princess have NEVER mentioned to us!
    (15) Just got a letter today from Princess. Princess ADMITTED that one of our bags was put in another area of the cruise terminal.
    (16) For showing their gesture of goodwill, a check would be sent in approximately 4-6 weeks!

    Hello everyone, yes we were so stupid for listening and following the instructions and we ended up missing our bag for over a month, and then now we have to wait another 4-6 weeks to get our $69 back!

    Are we patient enough?

  • FL Traveler

    It doesn’t appear the luggage was lost only misplaced or delayed. The mistake the trvelers made was listening to the baggage handler who was not an offical rep of the cruise line. He stressed not holding the shuttle up and the passengers went along with it. Princess’ response was (to me) appropriate and considerate. Hopefully they will not be smeared in the TV or newspaper reports .

  • Timothy

    If Princess misplaced the customer’s bag in somewhere else, how the customer could collect it? Therefore, I believe it was a lost luggage report until later Princess FOUND it. Of course Princess could find it baecause they misplaced it at the beginning.

  • Cindy

    Princess admitted they have misplaced the op luggage, they should have more responsibily to send their bag in the first place plus Princess didn’t communicate with op for they finally found their bag (it should be few hour later or the end of the day). For a month? Oh my God! 4-6 weeks to get the refund? Oh Princess, you can do better!To me, I can’t tolerate that!

  • Mary

    I don’t think I should wait in a shuttle ready heading to airport just because of a passenger still keep finding his/her bag. From what I read this couple still have 2 1/2 hours spare time at the airport kept waiting for their bag, this telling us that they really didn’t want to hold up the other passengers and they did file report to Princess reps at the airport. They were not stupid to me, they were just a easy talking couple.

  • fun guy

    I totally agree with Bob. If Princess misplaced my bag that made me not finding it, missing my flight, Princess should take the responsibilty. In this case, the couple have tried to find their missing piece, didn’t want to hold up the other passengers, filed the report, waited for Princess feedbck. They have done their part.

    Princess admitted their wrongdoing by sending them a check 4-6 weeks later? Unbelievable!

  • Eddie

    I just didn’t understand why Princess not contact the passengers when they found the bag still at the terminal–the same day, the following day(s)……

    Even the passenger “left” their bag accidently, Princess would do nothing for the unclaimed bag even the bag still have the passengers’ information?

  • Bill

    I agree with Bob and LadySiren. My luggage was placed outside the cabin and in Princess’s hand. If I could not locate it because one of the crews, stevedore or whoever misplaced somewhere else, it should be Princess’s responsibility because they asked us to do so. Or from now on, Princess should not ask their customers placing their bags outside the stateroom or the customers carry all their own bag while disembarking.

    To receive the refund in 4-6 weeks? Why it needs to take this long? If Princess chose to refund the money (they should have sent the bag at the first place!), they should have sent the check right away, not in weeks! Is Princess telling us something here?

  • John

    Obviously Princess didn’t follow the “normal procedure” to send the passengers’s bag on a next shuttle and also Princess didn’t inform passengers that they have found their bag and given them the options for shipping their bag. so I think Princess should refund the shipping asap not in a month or longer.

  • firefighter

    We have the similar situation happened to us three years ago. We could not find our one piece of luggage and we also had purchased a transfer.The rest of the incident was quite similar to this couple. The only different was no wrong bag was put on the shuttle. When we got home, called Princess numerous times, e-mails, sent mails…they just didn’t respond at all. Finally I told them “this is the last time I ask you to give me the info about where our missing piece was; otherwise, I’ll inform as many as media as I can about the “story”. Three days later we got a call from Princess telling us that the bag was on the way and the shipping? FREE OF CHARGE!

    I don’t blame this couple to ask many media for help. In some cases (especially small cases), Princess won’t do anything unless you go further action. Since the three years ago incident, we (include our big family) have never on Princess anymore.

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  • Mekhong Kurt, Bangkok, Thailand

    I second Bob (September 18, 2009) on this one.

  • Brooklyn

    What about the inconvenience of doing without their luggage on vacation? Were they compensated for the replacement cost? Princess is at fault – their cruise, their responsibility. The fact that it has a policy in place that involves charging the customer under any circumstances is completely unacceptable and suggests that this happens far too often!

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