When your Luggage is Delayed
 

If you travel a lot, the odds are that you and your luggage will get separated at some point.

This happened to us in 2024 when travelling from Glasgow to Los Angeles. When your home airport is Glasgow, there are aren’t many options for direct long haul flights. You will inevitably have to change at a London airport (Dublin is a good alternative for clearing US Customs early though).

We were flying Premium Economy with British Airways, and the Glasgow to Heathrow flight (which had already been rescheduled for an hour later) was delayed by nearly two hours.

On arrival at Heathrow, we had to sprint to our international gate for the LAX leg.

We made it, our luggage did not.

At LAX we spent over an hour queuing at US Customs. By the time we made it to the carousels, there was no mention of our flight. We initially thought that our luggage must have been taken off the belt and stored somewhere. We eventually found a member of staff who had a clipboard and all our party’s names were on it, along with a few other unlucky individuals.

For the first time, I had put Apple AirTags in our cases, and they (intermittently) showed that our cases were still in Glasgow. The next day this gave us comfort as the AirTags’ location occasionally updated over the Atlantic Ocean, so we at least knew our cases were on their way.

We didn’t want our luggage delivered to our accommodation as we were only there for one night, and we should have been starting our road trip the following day. Instead we had to hang around waiting for a call from the airport that never came. We eventually drove to the airport anyway and someone pointed us to a pile of cases near check-in. Ours were in the pile, completely unattended. We grabbed our cases, and after a lot of swearing, we finally left to start our holiday almost 24 hours later than planned.

I’m not very good at being flexible with plans, but I’m learning! We had to abandon our first day in order to stay local to the airport and shop for essentials (that would be reimbursed to us by the airline).

An important lesson learned was to pack basic emergency items in your hand luggage for this very situation. Most essentials can of course be purchased, but when you don’t leave your destination airport until after 3am, after begging your hotel to keep your rooms available, you end up arriving at your accommodation with very little until the following morning.

Luckily, as we had just flown Premium Economy for the first time, we kept our little amenity kits as souvenirs. This meant that we had toothbrushes and toothpaste. I also always make sure I have spare contact lenses on me as well.

All advice and articles will always tell you to also keep any medication on you, but I now always pack in my hand luggage anything that i need while the shops are shut! That’s my rule of thumb anyway.

I now always pack my hand luggage as if I will be stranded without my case in the middle of the night.  This means spare underwear, toothbrush and toothpaste (unless you know you are getting an amenity kit on the plane), phone charger, plug adapter (if you need one), cleansing wipes, and If possible, I buy some water and something to eat before leaving the airport. Putting Apple AirTags in the cases also gave us great peace of mind.

On that trip, the following morning we all bought toiletries and Ill fitting clothes in Walmart to tide us over.

Rubbish start to the holiday, but I’ll not be caught out again. If I have to suffer the inconvenience of delayed luggage, I want to be clean and comfortable during the ordeal.

Tips:

• Stay at the airport until you have a clear understanding of what is happening to reunite you with your luggage. There will be forms to fill in and reference numbers to be created.  There should be a Lost Luggage desk near the Baggage Collection area.

• Ask for your luggage to be delivered to your accommodation/home if that’s what is most convenient to you, or if you are coming back to get yor luggage at the airport, find out where to collect it.

• Find out what compensation is available, what the limit on your expenses are, and how to claim.  Keep all your receipts.

• Ask for your checked baggage fee to be refunded.  We did this, and were refused, but try anyway, and definitely put it on your claim to the airline anyway if they refuse you.

• Check your travel insurance or credit card provider to see if they can help.

• When you do get your luggage, make sure you note any damage, and if the case is unlocked/has been opened, make sure nothing is missing. If so, put in a claim to the airline. The claims process is slow, and you’ll usually only be able to claim on your travel insurance if you have exhausted the attempting to claim via the airline first.

Hopefully, this never happens to you, but if it does, you'll be prepared.