Heather the Jetsetter
Chapter 6: The Neverending Story

Now that my time in London has come to a close, this tale moves towards the darker portion of the story (but hey, it just might have a happy ending). Let's recap my contact with Air Canada thus far...

1) Upon realizing my bag was never going to appear on the conveyor belt, I spoke with a nice gentleman at the AC desk to report it missing. He traced it to Vancouver and asked me to fill out a form with all of my contact info. He gave me a form with the lost baggage "hotline" number and a little cosmetic bag (which ended up doubling as my purse all weekend).
2) Saturday morning I called and was told it would arrive mid-afternoon. At 3pm I called and was told it would arrive at 6:30. It never arrived. I also called a few other times and received a busy signal or heard an answering machine.
3) I called Sunday morning and left a message requesting that they call Dave's cell (as directed on my submitted form) to leave a delivery time.
4) Monday I called and left a message asking them to send the bag to my permanent address.
5) At the airport I spoke with a man on the phone who said my bag had been delivered. I told him that the online bag tracer was incorrect (I had also been checking this site regularly since Friday) and to get the bag back from the courier and send it to my permanent address. He didn't seem to believe me.

And that brings us to Tuesday. After a few hours of sleep and several hundred dollars paid to the auto shop, I headed to work 12 hours after returning to the country. I didn't have a chance to contact AC again until I was home that night, but I volunteered mom to help me...I just couldn't bear to talk to them again!

Mom was told that my case had been closed, as the bag had been delivered Saturday. CASE CLOSED?! I was furious! Mom couldn't quite get the woman on the phone to believe that I had never received it, but the woman did at least reopen my case -- which as far as I can understand just means she gave it a new number, which still said the bag had been delivered.

By Wednesday I knew I had to call again, but I volunteered my dad to do it. Dad spoke with a man who also seemed only capable of reading the screen in front of him. As soon as the man said, "Sir, that bag was delivered," dad stopped him with "That's where our problem is" and retold my entire story. When the man wanted to transfer the call, dad insisted on continuing to speak with him...or his manager. As dad started asking for proof that I had signed for the bag and the name of the person who supposedly delivered it to me, the AC rep started tapping away on his keyboard to dig deeper. Seconds later he interrupted my dad with, "Oh sir...we have the bag. It's at Heathrow and scheduled to be sent to Dulles on the first flight tomorrow."

Dad called me with all of these details on my way home from work. After dinner I called AC's main number at Dulles and was transferred somehow to their reservation office in Tampa -- thank goodness! The man I spoke with has worked with the company for years, and he gave me lots of great ideas on how to share my story with customer relations, and for the first time, REAL customer service.

Thursday morning I called the baggage agents at Dulles and left a message, requesting to be contacted when my bag arrived. A few hours later, an AC agent from a nearby airport called the house and talked to mom. He also felt that my bag had been delivered and was following up on my case. Upon mom's request, he dug deeper too and learned that my bag had just arrived at Dulles! He also discovered that there were several notes about my bag out there, just drifting about and not attached to my file. No wonder no one had been able to help me out....well, that and no one cared to dig deeper unless pushed :-P

Thursday evening I called Dulles again to inquire about the status of my bag and was told I'd receive a call Friday. When Friday came and went, I called again Saturday morning and left a message at Dulles. THEN I called the 1-800 number and a woman said that my bag was still at Dulles but ready to be sent to a shipper and that I'd receive a call Sunday morning about a delivery time. One hour later, a man from FedEx calls to say he's picking my bag up from the airport close to my house and will deliver it to me within a few hours...I was so confused but excited...hopefully this wasn't someone playing a cruel joke O:-)

Sure enough, a couple of hours later the doorbell rang, and there was my lovely bag, with new tags and stickers all over it. Nothing was missing, but half of my clothes were completely soaked -- I'll take that over missing items any day!

Now that I have my bag back, I'm ready to write AC a letter detailing the whole process. I could send them this blog entry, but I should send something a little more formal :-)

I know it's only a *thing* that was full of *just things* and I would have been fine if it had been lost for good. Still, I'm very jazzed to have my bag back.

And (I know what you're thinking...FINALLY) this tale comes to a close, but stay tuned for just *one* more post about my first ever jetsetting weekend...

♥