I spoke with one of their baggage claim “experts” last night and he told me the bags arrived at my local airport 4 hours earlier and he was surprised I hadn’t been called. He tried to call the local baggage claim department but no answer. I told him I’d drive the 60 miles roundtrip to get the bags myself, so I headed out. I got to the airport and was told the bags aren’t there and haven’t arrived. In fact, it turns out the flight the guy on the phone said carried my bags doesn’t even fly on weekends, so he was totally wrong.

I’ve spoken with 3 different people on their baggage claim number (1-800-371-4771). Keep in mind these people are located in Guatemala and English is not a primary language for any rep I spoke with. In fact, I found I had to end each slowly spoken sentence I said with “do you understand”? When you ask to speak with a manager you’re always told “none are available — they’re all in a meeting.” Interesting. Don’t these managers have better things to do than sit in meetings all day? Like…say…how about dealing with customers?!

Next, and here’s my favorite part, try calling USAir’s Customer Relations number on a weekend (1-866-523-5333). Guess what? They’re not open on weekends! That’s right. A business that should have 24×7 customer support closes for the weekend! I guess they couldn’t find enough poverty-stricken Guatemalans to staff their customer relations number *and* their baggage claim number.

I paid well over $3K for my roundtrip business class ticket and now I have no bags. I’m on hold with a reservations person who is trying to find some information. I was desperate to talk with someone who uses English as a primary language, hence the call to the reservations number.

I also see that if they’ve lost my bags they have numerous idiotic exceptions to their reimbursement coverage. For example, electronics. Well, I can’t fit all my cables, chargers, etc., in my carry-on, so how do I get them to my destination? Also, they don’t cover “optics”, which I assume will mean the second pair of glasses I carry in my suitcase wouldn’t be covered. Nice.

Do yourself a favor. If you’ve stumbled across this post because you searched for “US Airways Sucks” like I did, run to another airline as soon as you can! Don’t do business with these idiots.

Thanks for stopping by to comment and to let us know now to stow any valuable items.

http://www.airlinecreditcards.com/travelhacker/10-useful-secrets-the-major-airlines-dont-want-you-to-know/

On my last (and I mean last) flight with US Airways, I was going from Phoenix to JFK/NYC.. We flew over Atlanta (US Airways gets creative with their flight patterns and uses “weather over the mid-west” as an excuse). We then got to JFK and had to wait in the air for at least half an hour before landing. I think we were flying circles over the Atlantic.. More fun. After a characteristically delayed US Airways flight, I found myself standing with my laptop staring at an empty luggage carousel. Quite luckily, they were able to get the location of my bag. It hadn’t moved an inch in the six hours after I had checked it in. Two days later, I was finally reunited with my clothes.

On that trip, I made sure my return flight was with a different carrier. It was a pleasant change to hear the pilot say that we would be landing 20 minutes early instead of the list of excuses US Airways spits out on every flight.

The call letters for Philadelphia International are PHL by the way.