American Airlines lost my snowboard bag on recent trip to Jackson Hole. While this isn't a board bag with surfboards I'm pretty sure the outcome could be the same. Flew Orlando to Jackson Hole with stop in Dallas. When I got to JH my only checked bag which was my snowboard bag with all my gear didn't show up. I talked to the AA baggage agent and he created a case and told me to buy/rent whatever gear I needed within reason so that I could snowboard the next day as planned and that I would be reimbursed. The agent assured me that my bag "would be on the next flight", well that never happened. It's been a month and half and countless hours of calls , filling out lost baggage claim forms, etc. It cost me about $1200 to rent all the gear needed for the 12 day trip. Now since they haven't found the bag they are telling me that they can't reimburse the rentals since they can't verify that I actually had anything in the bag! On the AA claim form you need a receipt for any item over $100 in value. Well I have no receipt for the snowboard/bindings that I bought ten years ago on Ebay....so sorry no receipt no reimbursement. The replacement cost of all the gear in the bag was about $2000 and to make matters worse I borrowed some of the stuff from a friend. A bunch of that stuff was over a $100 in value and I have no receipts....so I'm SOL. I guess if you have a bag with a bunch of gear in it maybe some trip insurance would be worth it. This ordeal was a real eye opener, it would have been helpful to have taken pictures of everything in the bag with the days newspaper in the picture for "proof of life" like they do with ransoms. The case worker explained that if you read the fine print you would know that you could potentially be in the situation that I'm now in. My total claim for rentals, buying some stuff that could not be rented(gloves, first layer,gaiter, etc) and the contents of the bag came to $3400 and I'll be lucky to get $1000. I might also be able to get a couple hundred bucks from a "delayed flight benefit" with the VISA CC that I used. So "Flyer Beware".

Edited: 04/24/2022 at 10:36 AM by grdsurf

Ouch!! So sorry to hear that. Sounds like most of my times on Spirit. I hope they come thru for you

-------------------------
Time and tide wait for no one.....

I'm debating flying Frontier, with just a carry on. I'm nervous about that. Can't imagine the AA ordeal you went through.

I've only carried bodyboards, which were a good deal. No extra charge but deposited in the "oversized baggage" pile with Southwest and American.