Hotel lost my luggage

bechster

I recently went to New York and on the day of checking out I left my suitcase in the Hotel's luggage store room. The bellman gave me a ticket to present to him when collecting it later. When I did come back they couldn't find my suitcase. It seems that they have given it to someone else or let someone else take it.
Dispite my efforts I have not been able to get it back and the hotel will not compensate me for it. I have claimed on my insurance, but that wont cover everything I lost. As the hotel company is registered in the UK I was thinking to take them to the county court (small claims court) in order to be compensated for all the things I have lost that were not covered by my insurance.
Has anyone been in a similar position and able to offer any advice?
Thanks

Tojo_Ralph

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What was the hotels policy with regards to left luggage?
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Most hotels are perfectly happy to look after luggage, be it with the concierge or in a luggage room, however, you can pretty much guarantee that they have policies stating that items are left at the owners risk and that the hotel accepts no responsibility for any loss.

Do you still have your luggage ticket? ..... The above is often stated on the ticket.
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sturll

Tojo_Ralph wrote: »

.....
What was the hotels policy with regards to left luggage?
.....
Most hotels are perfectly happy to look after luggage, be it with the concierge or in a luggage room, however, you can pretty much guarantee that they have policies stating that items are left at the owners risk and that the hotel accepts no responsibility for any loss.

Do you still have your luggage ticket? ..... The above is often stated on the ticket.
.....

You are right, but next time you stay in a US hotel read the 'hotel liability' which is usually on the back of the room door.
As ridiculous as it sounds (and im sure you already know this) it uses a few hundred words and loads of jargon to basically say:

"Whatever happens, whether our fault or not we are not liable - unlucky" This is why there are so many law suits in the US particularly civil ones against businesses. In the UK we have very clear (most of the times) laws in regards to Tort wheras the US is slightly different in that they dont quite work on the same kind of precedent we do. A classic example in UK law was car parks. For years the terms and conditions of the car park were inside the car park or on your ticket, something went fubar the car park got sued and lo and behold now alk ts&cs are now visible in the car park and by law you now get a 'cooling off period' within the car park - usually 15 mins or so.

The whole point behind this is that Hotels are covered by state law and are just waiting for someone to sue them - even if sued successfully it is extremely unlikely the law would change or indeed the hotel policy.

In short you may as well say good bye to your luggage, leave a report on trip advisor, tell all your friends and fire off a letter to the hotels head office. Other than that there is little else on offer for you - But get your night refunded, most hotels in the US have a great night or dont pay policy.

Best of luck.