u/saywhyagain

Edit: resolved. Thank you to all those who genuinely tried to help. The resolution was WestJet's baggage contracting firm. Not WestJet. Not United. A worker for AGI called my wife and gave her a personal cell, one of us will drive to pick up the bag when she's back at work Sunday. This is a complicated issue, and so far I haven't been able to get any real help or answers (With the exception of Karen at the Delta lost bag desk at O’Hare huge love for Karen).  To be clear United ‘owns,’ this issue as we flew on their plane, despite paying for delta tickets.

I'm currently on day 16 of a baggage nightmare that seems to be trending toward "lost," even though all four bags appear to still be sitting in O'Hare Terminal 5.

I booked a Delta itinerary (O'Hare → Seattle → Vancouver) for an Alaska cruise departing from Vancouver and ending in Seward for myself, my wife, and our 7-year-old.

While driving to O'Hare, Delta canceled our flight due to a somewhat nebulous "air traffic control restrictions" explanation. While still in the car, Delta rebooked us on WestJet (O'Hare → Calgary → Vancouver). We wanted to switch to a nonstop United flight, but were told we couldn't because Delta had rebooked us onto partner airline WestJet.

We checked in at the WestJet counter and checked four bags. While waiting in the Delta Sky Club, we received a notification that our first WestJet flight was delayed enough that we'd miss our connection in Calgary. At that point we switched to the nonstop United flight to Vancouver.

Unsurprisingly, our bags never arrived.

When we landed in Vancouver, we immediately filed a delayed baggage report with United. We gave the United baggage desk all four WestJet baggage tag numbers, along with AirTag sharing links for every bag. We later received an email saying they couldn't open the AirTag links. Unfortunately, by then we were already at sea with extremely limited internet access and couldn't respond or resend them.

Thankfully, we had planned to spend an extra day in Vancouver before boarding the cruise. Instead of enjoying downtown and Stanley Park, we spent the day frantically shopping at the airport outlet mall and placing a Walmart delivery order for essentials. By the next morning there was still no update, so we assumed we wouldn't see our luggage before boarding and bought enough clothing and toiletries to get through the cruise.

We never got our bags.

The AirTags have consistently shown our bags sitting in the same corner of O'Hare Terminal 5. One of the bags is not updating for some reason. They never appear to have moved after the evening we flew out of O'Hare.

While on the cruise, I made multiple calls to United, which wasn't easy from a ship. The cruise line even helped us make calls. Every conversation with United resulted in someone simply reading the notes already in our file back to us. During the second call, they tried to put me on hold again when I asked, "Where are my bags, and what is actually happening?" I declined because nothing had changed, and the conversation ended with the scripted, "Can I help you with anything else?" It honestly felt like they just wanted me off the phone per corporate procedure.

Fast forward to returning to O'Hare two days ago. My wife went to the Delta baggage counter (we were directed there instead in lieu of a WestJet counter). That's where we finally encountered someone who was both honest and genuinely helpful. Karen told us that in her 28 years working baggage, she'd only seen a situation like this one other time. She had both United and WestJet physically go look for the bags, but neither could find them despite the AirTags still showing them in Terminal 5. I could not make any of the bags play a sound even while in Terminal 5.  It states: “AirTag Not Teachable AirTag is too far way.” They're still showing there more than two weeks later. Two of the bags are on top of each other and the other approximately 50 feet away, which is the resolution of an AirTag

 

My wife has now uploaded thousands of dollars' worth of receipts for replacement clothes, luggage, gear, and toiletries to our United delayed baggage claim. We're also starting to inventory everything that was in the bags so we're ready to file the official lost baggage claim when day 21 arrives. We're currently on day 16.

All four bags have two of my business cards attached to the outside, and most also have one inside. I'm also going to try sharing the AirTag locations again with both United and WestJet. While we opened a United file reference, we have not received our WorldTracer file reference, due to the [not]great help from United Airlines call centers.

Has anyone dealt with anything like this? Is there anything else I should be doing? Has anyone had success getting an airline to actually retrieve bags that AirTags show sitting in an airport for more than two weeks?

Beyond the financial loss, this basically ruined the trip for my wife, who has an anxiety disorder, and it turned what should have been a once-in-a-lifetime family vacation into a constant source of stress.

Edit: resolved. Thank you to all those who genuinely tried to help. The resolution was WestJet's baggage contracting firm. Not WestJet. Not United. A worker for AGI called my wife and gave her a personal cell, one of us will drive to pick up the bag when she's back at work Sunday. This is a complicated issue, and so far I haven't been able to get any real help or answers (With the exception of Karen at the Delta lost bag desk at O’Hare huge love for Karen).  To be clear United ‘owns,’ this issue [edit: this is because of the Montreal Convention treaty] as we flew on their plane, despite paying for delta tickets.

I'm currently on day 16 of a baggage nightmare that seems to be trending toward "lost," even though all four bags appear to still be sitting in O'Hare Terminal 5.

I booked a Delta itinerary (O'Hare → Seattle → Vancouver) for an Alaska cruise departing from Vancouver and ending in Seward for myself, my wife, and our 7-year-old.

While driving to O'Hare, Delta canceled our flight due to a somewhat nebulous "air traffic control restrictions" explanation. While still in the car, Delta rebooked us on WestJet (O'Hare → Calgary → Vancouver). We wanted to switch to a nonstop United flight, but were told we couldn't because Delta had rebooked us onto partner airline WestJet.

We checked in at the WestJet counter and checked four bags. While waiting in the Delta Sky Club, we received a notification that our first WestJet flight was delayed enough that we'd miss our connection in Calgary. At that point we switched to the nonstop United flight to Vancouver.

Unsurprisingly, our bags never arrived.

When we landed in Vancouver, we immediately filed a delayed baggage report with United. We gave the United baggage desk all four WestJet baggage tag numbers, along with AirTag sharing links for every bag. We later received an email saying they couldn't open the AirTag links. Unfortunately, by then we were already at sea with extremely limited internet access and couldn't respond or resend them.

Thankfully, we had planned to spend an extra day in Vancouver before boarding the cruise. Instead of enjoying downtown and Stanley Park, we spent the day frantically shopping at the airport outlet mall and placing a Walmart delivery order for essentials. By the next morning there was still no update, so we assumed we wouldn't see our luggage before boarding and bought enough clothing and toiletries to get through the cruise.

We never got our bags.

The AirTags have consistently shown our bags sitting in the same corner of O'Hare Terminal 5. One of the bags is not updating for some reason. They never appear to have moved after the evening we flew out of O'Hare.

While on the cruise, I made multiple calls to United, which wasn't easy from a ship. The cruise line even helped us make calls. Every conversation with United resulted in someone simply reading the notes already in our file back to us. During the second call, they tried to put me on hold again when I asked, "Where are my bags, and what is actually happening?" I declined because nothing had changed, and the conversation ended with the scripted, "Can I help you with anything else?" It honestly felt like they just wanted me off the phone per corporate procedure.

Fast forward to returning to O'Hare two days ago. My wife went to the Delta baggage counter (we were directed there instead in lieu of a WestJet counter). That's where we finally encountered someone who was both honest and genuinely helpful. Karen told us that in her 28 years working baggage, she'd only seen a situation like this one other time. She had both United and WestJet physically go look for the bags, but neither could find them despite the AirTags still showing them in Terminal 5. I could not make any of the bags play a sound even while in Terminal 5.  It states: “AirTag Not Teachable AirTag is too far way.” They're still showing there more than two weeks later. Two of the bags are on top of each other and the other approximately 50 feet away, which is the resolution of an AirTag.

My wife has now uploaded thousands of dollars' worth of receipts for replacement clothes, luggage, gear, and toiletries to our United delayed baggage claim. We're also starting to inventory everything that was in the bags so we're ready to file the official lost baggage claim when day 21 arrives. We're currently on day 16.

All four bags have two of my business cards attached to the outside, and most also have one inside. I'm also going to try sharing the AirTag locations again with both United and WestJet. While we opened a United file reference, we have not received our WorldTracer file reference, due to the [not]great help from United Airlines call centers.

Has anyone dealt with anything like this? Is there anything else I should be doing? Has anyone had success getting an airline to actually retrieve bags that AirTags show sitting in an airport for more than two weeks?

Beyond the financial loss, this basically ruined the trip for my wife, who has an anxiety disorder, and it turned what should have been a once-in-a-lifetime family vacation into a constant source of stress.