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Airline Lost My Bag: What to Claim (and the $4,700 Most People Leave on the Table)

When an airline lost my bag, I almost walked away with a $50 toiletry voucher. Then I learned about the Montreal Convention cap and the interim-expense receipts agents really hope you never ask about.

The first time an airline lost my bag — a connection through Frankfurt, the bag went who-knows-where — the counter agent slid a little envelope across with a toiletry kit and a fifty-dollar voucher and a sympathetic shrug. And I almost took it and left. That’s the move they’re banking on. Airline lost luggage compensation is way, way more than a sad voucher, and the gap between what you’re owed and what you’ll be handed is, in my case, about $4,700. Here’s exactly how to claim it.

For international flights between countries that have signed it (most of the world), there’s a treaty called the Montreal Convention. It sets the airline’s liability for lost, damaged, or delayed baggage at roughly 1,288 “Special Drawing Rights” per passenger — an IMF currency unit that floats, but works out to somewhere around $1,700 to $2,400 depending on the exchange rate when you claim.

That’s per passenger, not per bag. And it’s a cap on what they owe you for the actual value of your lost stuff plus delay expenses — not a flat payout, but a ceiling that’s wildly higher than the voucher they hand you at the desk. No agent is going to volunteer the words “Montreal Convention.” You have to.

For purely domestic US flights it’s different — the DOT sets a minimum liability (a few thousand dollars, adjusted over time) and the airline’s contract of carriage spells out the rest. Either way: the real number has commas in it. The voucher does not.

This is the one step you cannot skip, and it’s the one people skip because they’re tired and want to go home. Before you leave the baggage hall, go to the airline’s baggage service desk and file a Property Irregularity Report — a PIR. Get the reference number. Photograph it.

No PIR, no claim. It’s the document everything else hangs off. If your bag is just delayed (most “lost” bags turn up within days), the PIR is also what tracks it and what authorizes your interim spending. So even at 1am, jet-lagged and furious, do it before you exit.

Here’s the money most people leave on the table. While your bag is delayed, you’re entitled to claim reasonable interim expenses — the stuff you have to buy because your things are missing. Clothes. Toiletries. A charger. A change of underwear, a work shirt for the meeting you flew in for, a swimsuit if you landed for a beach week with nothing.

“Reasonable” is the operative word — they won’t reimburse a designer shopping spree — but a few hundred dollars of genuine replacement basics is absolutely claimable, and it counts toward (or on top of, depending on the airline) the liability total. Keep every receipt. Every single one. The drugstore toothbrush, the cab to the shops, all of it.

Agents rarely advertise this because it costs them money. Some will tell you to “wait and see if it turns up” — which conveniently means you don’t spend, and they don’t reimburse. Don’t wait if you genuinely need things. Buy reasonable replacements, keep receipts, and claim.

A verbal complaint at the desk is not a claim. You must submit a written claim, and the Montreal Convention has hard deadlines that will quietly kill your case if you miss them.

For delayed baggage, you generally have 21 days from the date the bag is finally delivered to you to put in your written claim. For damaged baggage, it’s much shorter — often 7 days. Miss these and the airline can simply refuse, deadline being the cleanest possible reason to say no.

So: file the PIR at the airport, keep your receipts as you spend, and then submit a formal written claim — by the airline’s online form or email, with your PIR number, an itemized list of lost/damaged contents, and scanned receipts — well inside the window. Reference the Montreal Convention by name in the claim if it’s an international flight. It signals you know the rules, and claims from people who know the rules get handled differently. Funny how that works.

If you paid for the flight or the checked-bag fee with a decent travel credit card, check your card’s baggage protections too — many cover delayed and lost luggage on top of what the airline pays, sometimes faster and with less arguing. Stack them.

Don’t accept a “full and final settlement” voucher on the spot if your bag’s only been missing a day. You don’t yet know if it’s lost or just delayed, and signing away your rights for a $50 kit when you might be owed the cap is exactly the trade they want. Smile, take the toiletry bag (free is free), and tell them you’ll be filing a written claim.

And keep a copy of everything in one folder — PIR, receipts, emails, the lot. When you have to escalate (and sometimes you do), having it all in one place is the difference between a payout and a shrug.

I got most of that $4,700 back. It took three emails, two attached receipt PDFs, and one mention of the treaty. The voucher would have been fifty bucks.

File the PIR before you leave, keep every receipt, claim in writing inside the deadline, and say the words “Montreal Convention” — that’s how you get the real number instead of the voucher.

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