Top of Pinnacles National Park
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Bay Area drivers are garbage tier, no wonder all their companies are trying to make self driving.
Probably should put this in one of the rage threads. In Spain now, and trip is a disaster. Cliffs: Never fly Iberia if you can help it.
Iberia lost our checked bags on arrival. I pretty much never check a bag, but when travelling with the family, wife insists. I made sure we had some stuff in carry on luggage, just in case, but we ended up checking 2 bags. Both have been permanently lost (probably, I guess there is still a chance) on arrival in Madrid.
For the first few days they had no idea where they were. On day 4 they have found one bag and still have no info on the second. Weāre like, āOK, weāll come to the airport and get it.ā We are taking a side trip to Grenada so we show up 4 hours early for the flight because by now we have realized what a clusterfuck Iberia lost baggage is and we know this will take a while.
So after checking in for the flight we get to the lost baggage area and ask for the bag (which they claim they have). Apparently there is one guy who doesnāt get to work for a half hour who can access it. So we wait for him to send it to the baggage area where we are waiting. three hours later and itās still not there. So we leave and tell them to hold it at the airport and we will just come pick it up when we get back to Madrid.
While weāre in Grenada we get a text and email saying they have the bag and they are holding it for us at the airport. We actually return from Grenada by train. We get in at midnight and take an uber straight to the airport. Of course, they have no fucking idea where it is. They take us to a bag storage area where it should be. There are about 200 bags there laid out, but itās pretty easy to tell that neither of ours is there.
So, they now have no idea where either bag is. Over the next couple of days we call a couple of times. Each time the person on the phone wants to confirm that we got the first bag as there is a record of us coming to the airport to collect it. Of course, what is not in the record is that the motherfuckers DIDNāT GIVE US THE FUCKING BAG. So itās been one week now and their official answer is āWe have no info on your bags we just have to wait.ā
Theyāre all like ājust buy what you need and send us the receiptsā. But as you can imagine, itās not that easy. In the last week weāve spend a solid 12hrs dealing with this shit. The first day we had to wait in the lost baggage line for 4hrs, because they apparently lost everyoneās fucking bag.
Iām a pretty flexible guy, so while this is very annoying, I can make it on a couple of sets of clothes (and our airbnb has a washer/dryer which has been huge). But Mme Melkerson is a different story and the amount of joy this has sucked out of this trip for her is really bringing me down too.
On the bright side, a painful lesson has been learned: Never check a bag. It is a donk move. And aside from the possibly losing the bag there are other downsides. Also Spain is pretty cool and we have had some great experiences. Itās just not as relaxing, enjoyable, or stress-free as it should have been.
That sucks and sounds incredibly frustrating. Based on stories Iāve read you can probably replace āIberiaā with virtually any airline and there will be similar experiences.
I havenāt done it myself, but AirTags in checked baggage seems like a good idea. Also Chase Sapphire (and probably other credit cards) offer lost luggage protection, but I donāt know how much of a hassle it is to invoke that.
Yeah literally never check a bag. Sorry, that sucks.
Iām not sure you can. In Spain there are businesses whose job is to basically sue/threaten to sue Iberia (or any airline) so that you get your max compensation for your lost bag (1500 euro/bag). They charge a 25% vig, but honestly I think weāre going to hire one of them to deal with this shit rather than spending hours and hours on the phone and filling out forms.
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I have shown inhuman restraint in saying āI told you soā to an extremely distraught Mme Melkerson. It has slipped out a couple of times, but Iām suppressing the urge to fully express myself. Iām saving that for the next time the topic of checking a bag comes up. Hopefully, that is never.
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Fuck you all with never check a bag. As far as Iām concerned youāre all ā ā ā ā ā all make my flying experience shittier.
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Your anger is misguided.
Never check a bag doesnāt mean carry on a bunch of oversized shit. I donāt like those people either.
It means that you pack light and within your allotment. You can pack a lot in normal sized carry-on.
Hope that helps.
Edit: Letās for a second imagine that we interpret it your way. How many times do you need to lose all of your checked baggage before you joined the never-check-a-bag club. Once? Twice? No amount of times?
iāve lost my baggage once and in my experience (and Iāve flown a lot) most donāt pack light
This would be the sixth time lifetime for me. And by far the most devastating. Also the second in 3 months. Last time was on the way back home and they did send them to us the next day, so not terrible.
Thatās where you need to direct your anger. Iāll co-sign on that.
I know Iām tempting fate by typing this, but I usually check a bag, and Iāve never had it lost.
- I donāt like lugging it around.
- I donāt like stressing about if there will be any overhead space left, or if my bag will fit in the bin.
- I have to worry if something in my toiletries has too much liquid, or I pack some other weird object or liquid I didnāt think about.
- I usually try to sit in a front row, where I canāt stow my backpack. So now Iām shoving two things in the overhead bin like an asshole.
I figure at this point Iām ahead of the game in terms of convenience and lower stress level that itās been worth a lost bag if it ever happens.
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Iām much more willing to check for a direct flight than anything connecting. Iāve never lost a bag either, but I feel like can probably count on 2 hands the number of times Iāve checked in my life.
I just flew back from Seattle, and since it was a 6-day trip, I packed a large bag and checked it on my roundtrip, non-stop flights.
Most lost bags eventually turn up and get delivered, but if still missing after 24 hours Iād probably just go to the closest mall and buy enough clothes to get through the trip. I canāt imagine ruining my vacation by wasting hours traveling back and forth to the airport in the hopes of getting my bag back.
When traveling with my family, we always check our bags, and we try to fly direct whenever possible. It adds some time at the beginning and end, but itās nice to go through the airport and on the plane without any large baggage.
On our way back to Japan from the US, we typically have three suitcases/boxes full of American shopping items and one travel golf bag, so not checking bags is not an option. Never an issue so far.
Iāve never had a lost checked bag, and when traveling with kids itās basically a necessity.
I will say that one of the underrated benefits of being in Chicago is that Iāve probably flown on 50+ domestic trips since living here and have had to connect exactly once.
Seems like itās the people who almost never check their bags whose bags get lost.
Luggage can smell fear.
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Btw Iām going to Paris in 2 weeks. After posting itt I think I might not check my bag.
Ever try to buy regular shit in Paris? It would be a minimum 10 stores scattered all over town just to try to crappily replicate everything in the bag.
How long are you there, and have you been before?