United Airlines kept saying that the missing bag would be on the next flight and it wasn’t
Their flight back home didn’t touch the ground until midnight and the one bag that they had checked between them, which contained lacrosse gear valued at $2,000, did not land with them. And with the pair scheduled to fly to San Francisco two days later for another tournament, simply buying a new stick was not a solution since it would take a month to break it in the right way to be used during a game.
The AirTag had the exact location of the lost bag
As Sandra stated, “They said, ‘Your bag’s going to come in later today on one of two flights.’ I said ‘OK, great,’ but it never came. So I called later that afternoon and they said ‘Your bag is still in Baltimore,'” says Shuster. But thanks to her Apple AirTag, she knew that the bag containing her daughter’s lacrosse gear was not in Baltimore. The AirTag was showing that the bag was at the baggage reclaim center at O’Hare Airport in Chicago.
Sandra’s daughter borrowed equipment for the tournament in San Francisco and at the Denver airport after flying home, Sandra approached the lost luggage desk and repeated her tale of woe right down to mentioning how her AirTag knows exactly where the bag is located. But the United Airlines rep suggested that Shuster filed a claim for the missing bag and its contents. He told her that most people file for the missing bag, receive $1,000-$2,000 in compensation and the bag shows up a few months later. He called it a “Win-win” for the family.
At first, the airline seemed ready to roll out the red carpet for her: “We’ve let our baggage team in ORD (O’Hare International Airport) know that you’ll be arriving. Thirty minutes later their tweet had a different tune, “We recommend that you remain in Denver while we continue to work through our processes to bring your bag back to you.”
Shuster had to fly to Chicago herself to get the bag back
Not believing a word of what United was saying, Shuster explains what she did next. “So I jumped on the plane, flew to Chicago, got to baggage claim, and it took them 30 seconds to give me my bag,” she says. “Meanwhile I’d already sent pictures of the bag, the claim ticket, and its location to United. It’s gobsmacking that they can’t figure out how to do it better in this day and age.”
After flying to Chicago Shuster got the bag back in 30 seconds
In a statement, the airline said, “Unfortunately, this bag was incorrectly tagged at the start of the trip which contributed to the longer delay – we’ve apologized to Ms. Shuster, reimbursed the miles used, and gave her an additional travel credit to use toward a future flight. Our teams work to reconnect our customers with their baggage as quickly as possible and we regret that we could not get this bag to Denver sooner.”
