Delayed baggage before going on a cruise

[lbhendry]

My daughter's checked bag never made it on the plane from Birmingham to Fort Lauderdale and we had to spend $$$ to replace her bare necessities before boarding our cruise ship (2 hours after her arrival.) It contained all her clothing and shoes and necessities for a 7 day cruise.  Her bag finally did make it to FLL a couple of days later but we were in Mexico by then. 

If I have an itemized receipt are we eligible for reimbursement from Southwest for those expenses?

LBH

[TheMiddleSeat]

Very unlikely since the bag did make it to the destination.  Southwest may offer a voucher of payment for necessities such as a toothbrush.  Do you have a lost baggage claim with Southwest?  You can write to them via the contact us link at the bottom of the page referencing the claim number to see what they would be willing to offer. 

The situation you are describing, expenses from delayed baggage is a benefit offered by some credit cards when you purchase the airline ticket with that card.  If you are going to book trips with extremely tight timelines like you described you should look into additional travel insurance or credit cards with travel protection.

--TheMiddleSeat

[dfwskier]

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@lbhendry wrote:

My daughter's checked bag never made it on the plane from Birmingham to Fort Lauderdale  

Southwest requires that check bags be tendered no later than 45 minutes pre flight time. Did your daughter meet that requirement? Southwest says that bags checked in less than that might not make the flight.

[lbhendry]

Apparently not - but why didn't they just tell her to take it to the gate and check it there? And BTW, this was at a TINY airport!  Also, her flight the night before was cancelled which was why she was on such a tight timeline.  The whole experience was less than desirable.

[DancingDavidE]

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@lbhendry wrote:

Apparently not - but why didn't they just tell her to take it to the gate and check it there? And BTW, this was at a TINY airport!  Also, her flight the night before was cancelled which was why she was on such a tight timeline.  The whole experience was less than desirable.

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They would have mentioned it if she was checking luggage less than 45 minutes prior to departure, and it is written on the acknowledgements. I have done this before and it often does make it, but it sounds like that didn't work out in this case. If you were coming from a little airport that didn't have a lot of connections to FLL I can see that it might be a day for the next delivery.

If the bag was too big to carry on they wouldn't be encouraging a gate check, if it was carry-on size and/or had anything in it that wouldn't go through TSA then they would have checked it there.

Was 

[bec102896]

At least she made the cruise right? 

I'd arrive at least a day before in case a flight issue were to happen (delay, cancellation, delayed bag) 

Also if I'm going on a cruise I would carry a bag on because bags do get lost and I wouldn't want to wear the same outfit everyday on a cruise 

As suggested you can reach out to Southwest via the contact us link or you can use the website on your delayed bag report. 

-Blake 

[floridaguy]

I lived in the Birmingham AL area for 20 years.  I know the airport and it is well run.  I am going to guess that you arrived at the "tiny" airport in a nick of time rather than the standard two hours before flight time.

If this is true, you had a compressed schedule which is why the bags didn't make it on the first flight and had to wait for the next flight.

Please confirm your arrival time at the airport versus the flight departure time.