Lost luggage and easy jet £25 a day essentials budget

RBizz

Am hoping someone on here might have experienced this and found a way through, or if there is any advice.

had a return flight with easy jet, on the way out they lost our luggage (half the plane had lost luggage, so a massive !!!!!! up) we were booked onto a cruise so had to make our way to the boat with nothing, spoke to easy jet and they said they’d cover emergency purchases for 3 days since they’d hope to locate the bag and sent it to us. 

Due to being on a ship the options for purchases were limited, we purchased a couple of t-shirts, a pair of shorts each, underwear, socks, a hat each and toiletries. We also had medication in our bag which needed to be replaced so we had medication and prescription fees. Nothing over the top but it adds up! 

We purchased enough for 3 days and then had the items laundered half way through the trip, as Easyjet said they’d only cover 3 days worth of essential items despite the bag never making it’s way to us during the holiday. 

After landing back home we called and found out there is a max £25 a day per person for 3 days limit on purchases, which quite frankly doesn’t cut it, medication costs were more than £130 for one thing which is nearly the entire entitlement for both of us. 

Does anyone know if there is a way around this, or some way to escalate via a third party as easyJet aren’t budging. Our travel insurance isn’t offering much more at £150 each total costs for emergency expenses. I understand not benefitting from this, but I don’t want to be left out of pocket which is what it looks like will happen with these low amounts offered to compensate for the items required during the trip. 

eskbanker

RBizz said:

After landing back home we called and found out there is a max £25 a day per person for 3 days limit on purchases, which quite frankly doesn’t cut it, medication costs were more than £130 for one thing which is nearly the entire entitlement for both of us.

To be fair, this is their published policy, as per https://www.easyjet.com/en/help/baggage/damaged-delayed-or-lost-luggage

Essential items

If you’re away from home and we haven’t been able to return your bag within 24 hours, we understand that you’ll need to buy essential toiletry items and basic clothing. For this we’ll reimburse up to £25 per person per day, for up to three days (that’s a maximum of £75 per person in total).

They do use an ADR scheme for escalating complaints, and you ultimately have the choice of taking them to small claims, but if they've complied with their published policy then you'd need to be making the case that this policy contravenes your statutory rights or is unfair.

Has the baggage subsequently turned up?  If it has, then you can presumably mitigate your losses by using the medication that was in it, or if it's been declared lost then that would be a separate claim from the original delay....

RBizz

Thank you for the reply, we had no internet on the cruise so had to take the call on face value as were rushed to get on the ship after faffing in the airport. Not sure anyone checks the ins and outs of the easyJet website on lost luggage before flying so I’m not too fussed if it’s on their website, it’s a very low amount and definitely not enough to cover 3 days worth of clothes and essentials for most (especially in this economic climate!) 

unfortunately we are in purgatory with the luggage,  we don’t have it (so have had to incur extra expenses on top of the trip ones when back in the UK) but the tracking company has logged it as found, pending delivery to airport. We are not sure which airport it’s being delivered to, or whether it’s actually been found as it’s been 2 weeks since being ‘found’. However since the tracking shows it’s found our insurance isn’t classing it as lost luggage neither is the airline, but we don’t have it and no idea on when we will get it  

definitely seems to be a gap in the process, as my concern is around the ‘essential’ label for purchases, so might need to go down the Small claims route either way, as I’m concerned what’s essential for us might not be essential in their eyes! 

eskbanker

RBizz said:

Not sure anyone checks the ins and outs of the easyJet website on lost luggage before flying so I’m not too fussed if it’s on their website, it’s a very low amount and definitely not enough to cover 3 days worth of clothes and essentials for most (especially in this economic climate!)

I wasn't necessarily suggesting that you should have read that policy before leaving, but simply that if they've done exactly what they say they'll do then your options for challenging them about it (especially in court) are somewhat curtailed.

RBizz said:

my concern is around the ‘essential’ label for purchases, so might need to go down the Small claims route either way, as I’m concerned what’s essential for us might not be essential in their eyes! 

I don't think they'd necessarily contend that their published figure would be enough to cover everyone's definition of 'essential', but doubt that there's any legal obligation on them to cover that on an unrestricted basis (have you found anything?), so I imagine that their approach of capping reimbursement at a standardised value would be deemed reasonable by a court.

DullGreyGuy

One for your travel insurance... most policies will payout £100-300pp or so and often without an excess so would make up the shortfall.

onashoestring

The up to £25 per person per day that  Easyjet allow you to claim is for  “basic clothing and essential toiletries” not medication.

The cost for replacing the medication should be claimed from your travel
insurance - assuming that you chose a policy that covers lost baggage. 

From what you have said -you are getting £150 for both of you from Easyjet and £300 from your travel insurance . Total £450 . 

Ganga

Also in future pack your medication in your hand luggage so never goes missing.

RBizz

Oh no I merely meant I’m not claiming I didn’t know about the amount being the issue, my issue is with the fact that for £25 a day it’s very limiting. 

Especially when your only shopping options are cruise ship stores which are charging £10 for a toothbrush! 

Haven’t found anything online around reasonable expense amounts, most likely due to it being so variable, I understand they can’t cover for everyone’s definition of essential but it just feels like there is a gap of sorts between £25 a day which would barely cover a t-shirt and some toiletries and a celebrities version of essentials. For example a swimsuit, I’d class that as a holiday essential, but it does fall outside of the ‘deodorant and underwear’ examples given on their website. 

I’d love to find a civil version of taking your victim as you find them, as surely the context of the holiday will define what’s essential and reasonable with expenses. If I was in a major city for the week I’d probably be able to do it for close to £75, but on a ship (and pregnant so options for clothes are even more limited to certain styles that could fit!) meant that would be impossible to cover even clothing and toiletry essentials for that amount. 

RBizz

@DullGreyGuy thanks for this, unfortunately the insurance amounts don’t make up the entire amount but am hoping to get closer than the EasyJet numbers anyway.  

Just annoyed to be out of pocket at the end of the day for the airlines mess up. 

RBizz

@onashoestring will definitely see if the medication can be claimed outside of this lost luggage situation as that does make a dent in total costs. 

Unfortunately the £450 doesn’t cover the amount spent, as we had limited options to shop around being on the boat but will try small claims if our baggage does show up in the end (if our luggage is officially lost the claim for that would help alleviate the difference in the essentials coverage) 

ColdPensioner

Baggage handling still seems to be in chaos, I have a friend who lost her baggage on the way out, and the replacement luggage got lost again on the way home! 

We lost a suitcase once on a holiday, which turned up a week late, by which time of course we had replaced stuff. To add insult, they tried (and failed) to charge for the additional suitcase on our return.

My wife and I now pack separate cases, then move stuff around for 'half and half', so at least we'll have a few clothes. 

I don't think you'll have much luck getting any more £, especially as your luggage is not actually lost, just delayed.