Our Bag Was Lost...Then Found

Lost bags happen.  It's a part of flying but I've been lucky.  I've flown over 270,000 miles in the past three years and haven't had any issues.  But given the drama surrounding our flight to Hong Kong, we  knew we'd be lucky to have our bag make the flight.

When we arrived in Hong Kong after an awesome flight aboard SQ001, a Singapore Airlines customer service representative was waiting for us at the end of the jet bridge.  We were escorted through immigration and shown to the baggage service desk.  We were told that our bag would arrive the following day on the same flight (SQ001).  So we had 24 hours to go with just a carry on.  We filled out a claim form with our contact information and we were handed 800HKD ($103 USD) which seemed reasonable for 24 hours.

Luckily, we always plan for this and Emily had a handful of items in my carry on.  The Grand Hyatt was extremely accommodating - providing toiletries and hair utensils for Emily at no charge.  We woke up the next morning and checked on the status of the bag - it had not arrived.  We contacted Singapore via email and they were still working to locate the bag.  Ruh-roh.

I had mentally begun taking stock of what was in the bag and losing it would really suck.  We had dinner that evening with a friend so needed to get some nicer clothes.  We went to mall and kept our receipts.

The aftermath

That evening, we still hadn't heard back from Singapore.  So we emailed.  And called.  And then tweeted.  Finally we got a response (actually from both Singapore and United) that our bag would arrive that evening on United's direct flight from San Francisco.  Hoorah!  We notified the concierge and asked that they bring the bag up when received.  The bag arrived around 11PM that evening - more than 40 hours since we landed in Hong Kong.

Upon arriving back in the states, we filed a claim with Singapore Airlines for the rest of our expenses.  I am still waiting for the check but sounds like it should be here in the next few weeks - I will keep all of you posted.

So lost bags definitely do happen.  And airlines are generally pretty good at finding them even if they are bad at keeping you in the loop on their progress.  We always anticipate this situation on long haul trips and pack a carry on with a variety of items - just in case.  Here's to another 270,000+ miles without another lost bag...