How long to give airline to refund me for damaged baggage and what to do next?

MissTasmanian

Firstly I wish I'd known before that you need to report the damage at the airport before leaving or the airlines won't even consider compensation. It was only because a nice young man saw my expression when my mangled bag reappeared that he told me to wait to report the damage and so I instead waited thirty minutes to go fill in a report.

However it's now been 6 weeks and despite constant emails to Turkish airlines I still hasn't replied a reply apart from a basic template that they're looking into the claim. Does it usually take this long? If they continue to ignore me is there anything I can do? Any help would be much appreciated.

k3lvc

Much depends on your status with the airline (frequent traveller etc) and what's being claimed i.e. just case or contents as well ?


In 2,000+ flights over past 10yrs I've only had 2 issues. Swiss settled within 48hrs with a replacement bag and cheque for the damaged contents and Easyjet within 72hrs. Admittedly both could see I'd got future flights booked with them which added some gravitas to my case


Are you disputing anything with them or just waiting for their offer/settlement ?

MissTasmanian

k3lvc wrote: »

Much depends on your status with the airline (frequent traveller etc) and what's being claimed i.e. just case or contents as well ?


In 2,000+ flights over past 10yrs I've only had 2 issues. Swiss settled within 48hrs with a replacement bag and cheque for the damaged contents and Easyjet within 72hrs. Admittedly both could see I'd got future flights booked with them which added some gravitas to my case


Are you disputing anything with them or just waiting for their offer/settlement ?

Thank you for your reply! I am afraid it was just a normal holiday flight; however I do travel a lot for work so maybe I could use that, not that my company use them anyway.

It was just the suitcase not the contents that I was claiming for as they'd managed to smash all the plastic parts but everything inside was okay. The woman at the desk said they'd refund me for the bag or get me a new one but since then I haven't had any offers from them.

I had a look online but I can't find any information about what to do next.

unholyangel

MissTasmanian wrote: »

Thank you for your reply! I am afraid it was just a normal holiday flight; however I do travel a lot for work so maybe I could use that, not that my company use them anyway.

It was just the suitcase not the contents that I was claiming for as they'd managed to smash all the plastic parts but everything inside was okay. The woman at the desk said they'd refund me for the bag or get me a new one but since then I haven't had any offers from them.

I had a look online but I can't find any information about what to do next.

https://www.caa.co.uk/Passengers/Resolving-travel-problems/How-the-CAA-can-help/How-the-CAA-can-help/

Its been a while but I believe the CAA can deal with airline complaints.


ETA: Also if you paid by credit card and the flight was over £100, you may be able to make a claim against the card company.

MissTasmanian

Thanks everyone for your extremely helpful input!

I'll give Turkish Airlines 2 more weeks and then at 8 weeks I'll then contact CAA and my bank for assistance.

agrinnall

Many years ago when I was emigrating to New Zealand I had a few days stop over in LA. When I got to my hotel there I discovered that one of my cases had been damaged at some point after handing it over at Heathrow. When I returned to LAX to fly on to Auckland I spoke to the BA desk and the lady went into the office and returned with a replacement case and I just transferred my belongings there and then. It was really the ideal solution at the time, although my opinion of BA in general has plummeted in subsequent years so maybe it wouldn't be resolved so quickly now.