Your luggage went somewhere else.

This is the one claim with a deadline short enough to lose by waiting, so start today.

Read this first

The deadlines are days, not months

Written notice to the airline is commonly required within seven days for damage and twenty-one days for delay, counted from when the bag was made available to you. Miss it and the claim can be gone regardless of merit. File the Property Irregularity Report before you leave the airport, then put the claim in writing immediately — and confirm your airline's exact deadline the same day rather than relying on a general figure. One relief: those short deadlines attach to damage and delay. A bag that is never returned has no seven- or twenty-one-day notice clock, only the two-year limit on bringing an action, so if you are past three weeks on a bag that never arrived you have not lost the claim.

What you are owed

Reimbursement of reasonable replacement costs

For delayed bags, the essentials you had to buy while waiting. Keep every receipt and buy reasonably — this is compensation for necessity, not an opportunity.

Compensation up to a per-passenger limit

On international itineraries the Montreal Convention caps the airline's liability for baggage that is lost, damaged or delayed at a defined amount per passenger. Baggage not returned after a prolonged period is generally treated as lost.

The bag itself, or its value

If it is never found, the claim becomes the contents. An itemised list with proof of value is what decides the amount.

How they will refuse, and what answers it

“You did not report it at the airport.”

Report it now anyway and explain the circumstances. The absence of a report at the airport weakens the claim but does not automatically end it — the written-notice deadline is the one that matters most.

“The damage was pre-existing or is normal wear.”

Photograph the damage immediately, ideally at the airport with the baggage tag visible. Wheels and handles are the usual battleground; describe the specific failure rather than the general state of the case.

“You cannot prove what was inside.”

Provide what you have — receipts, photographs, bank statements showing the purchases. An itemised list with plausible values is normal and expected.

Gather this before you write

□The Property Irregularity Report reference from the airport
□Your baggage tag receipt
□Dated photographs of any damage, with the tag visible
□Receipts for everything you had to replace while waiting
□An itemised list of contents with values, for a bag not returned
□The date the bag was finally returned, which starts the notice clock

Now make them answer.

Tell us what happened in your own words. We write the claim, set the deadlines, and email each escalation on the day it is due — and we will not demand money the rules do not owe, because a claim that overreaches gets a one-line refusal.