Losing your luggage
Losing your luggage is not something you think about when you’re organizing a trip. But sometimes things do go wrong, as we found out last week on our way to Europe.
After our flight was delayed in Ottawa because of a snowstorm causing us to miss our connection in Toronto, we spent a good 45 minutes getting rebooked on the next flight out (the following day at 10:30pm) and getting a hotel sorted out for the night. We were told to pick up our bag but by the time we got to the carousel, our bag was nowhere to be seen.
Courtesy desk
We immediately located the WestJet courtesy desk and were told that most likely the bag was already rerouted to Alitalia for the flight the next day.
Feeling somewhat reassured, we made our way to the hotel and to bed around 1:30 am. We had a great night’s sleep and returned to the airport the next evening for Take 2 of the Toronto-Rome portion of our trip.
On our way to the airport, the shuttle driver was chatty and questioned us as to where we were headed. When we told him we were on our way to Italy for three months, he made a comment about us not having much luggage. We explained the situation and he suggested we return to the WestJet courtesy desk to make sure the bag had been transferred to the correct airline.
We took his advice and headed there right away. Again we were reassured that the bag was in the Alitalia baggage room and that we could confirm this when we checked in.
During check in a new tag was printed and sent to the baggage room so it could be attached to our bag and put on our flight. The manager helping us was very pleasant and said she would see that this happened and would confirm with us at the gate.
At the gate
Arriving at the gate, the manager told us they weren’t able to locate our bag and that we should talk to an Alitalia member upon arrival in Rome to start a claim, which we did. Partly expecting to be brushed off WestJet style, we were pleasantly surprised when the Alitalia woman was so pleasant and took the time to get a description of the bag and all other information that would be needed to find the bag and assured us that we would be reunited as soon as possible.
At this point, we were feeling like we might actually never see the bag again and started making a list of contents which added up quickly. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to make a list ahead of time in the eventuality that something like this might happen.
Hitting the ground running we jumped on the next train to Termini and checked into the Beehive. Jetlag and the time change had us awake when the iPad dinged in the middle of the night, Alitalia giving us an update and an apology for not being able to locate our bag.
Checking our email again in the morning, I found this lovely message in my inbox:
i-trak to the rescue
I had completely forgotten about the tracking system we had on our luggage. The i-trak system assigns a unique number to your luggage. All you need to do is go online and fill in the details.
If your bag is ever lost, hopefully, it is found and the kind soul who finds it, in our case an Air Transat worker (we weren’t even flying AT) goes online and fills out the information which is immediately sent to your inbox and to your phone by text message.
I quickly contacted Air Transat and asked that the bag be transferred to Alitalia to which they replied that they would transfer it and put it on the next flight to Rome.
As soon as it was in Alitalia’s hands, they contacted us and sent us daily updates. During our last conversation, we were told to keep all receipts for essentials and clothing that we would need to buy until we received our luggage and all would be reimbursed.
Coming back from a walk, six days later, it was in the entrance to the apartment where we were staying.
The fact that our bag was found without any airline tags was a bit disconcerting but thank god our i-trak number was put into action. So far our bag has had more travel time than we have, we’re ready to enjoy the rest of our trip, with clean clothes 🙂
Hi Nat & Tim,
I-trak does indeed is an essential travel accessory! And even though you had to wait 6 days for the wayward thing, how fortunate to get it back. Hope the rest of your Italian journey is smoother. Lucky you – 2 months there!
~Josie
PS: I’ll be looking up the I-trak. Thanks for the good travel tip.
Thanks for the excellent suggestion, Nat and Tim. We’ve been very lucky over the years to have our bags arrive with us each time we fly but, as your post shows, being prepared can help avert the worst! I always think of the care we take in packing, making sure that each item is truly necessary to keep the weight in check and can’t imagine trying to replace the contents of a bag. You can be sure I’ll be checking out the i-trak!
Thanks for sharing this. Guess we can’t always assume the airlines will be on top of things. I’ll definitely look into this device!
Thanks for sharing i-track – I was not familiar – sounds like it could be a life saver!
Thx for the endorsement of I-track. I’ve not heard of this service and will look into it as my luggage has been lost a number of times.
Thanks Nat & Tim. Will look in to this for my upcoming trip.
I’m confident in saying that if it wasn’t for i-trak we would have never seen our bag again. Where are you off to?