What’s the best way to claim compensation for lost luggage?

Q My suitcase was lost on a flight from the UK to Spain last August, and has not been traced. Not only was this extremely difficult at the time, but when I submitted a claim (backed by receipts) for nearly £3,400, I was offered only just over £900. My suitcase alone cost me £349 and I had only used it on four previous occasions. After five months of stress I decided to accept the offer as I have come to the conclusion that I am never going to be treated fairly. Can you help get a fair settlement?

Name supplied

A Sorry to hear about your frustrating and upsetting experience. I do all I can to urge travellers to take cabin baggage if they possibly can, because it reduces the risk of loss. However, I recognise that this is not practicable for everyone. If you check your bag in and it is never seen again, then you must rely upon two things: the Montreal Convention, which governs international air travel and in particular compensation payments, and your travel insurance.

The convention (to which you committed at the point of booking, whether or not consciously) sets specific limits for lost bags. After a piece of checked luggage has been missing for three weeks, it is treated as permanently lost and you can begin the claims procedure – which, as you discovered, is arduous.

The maximum payout is 1,131 Special Drawing Rights – a strange, virtual currency that floats against real currencies. At present the maximum payout is worth about £1,200. You may understandably wonder why, since you substantiated a claim for nearly £3,400, the airline did not at least pay you the full £1,200. It may well have taken the £1,200 limit, looked at the dates on your receipts and arbitrarily knocked off a quarter for depreciation.

My reading of the rules is that this is questionable behaviour, and you may wish to consult a solicitor to try to retrieve the missing £300. But it may be more useful to pick up the claim with the travel insurer. You will already have done all you can to claim from the first line of obligation, the airline. So in theory a baggage claim should be straightforward – so long as you are covered to the value of the claim. But for a single bag to have almost £3,000 in contents will be unusual, and if that includes gadgets then there may be separate limits that could impede you claiming your full losses.

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Q Last October we booked a trip from Manchester to Cancun in Mexico for 9 November 2020 and paid a low £250 deposit. Shortly before Christmas, when I tried to view the booking, my app advised that I could not make any changes. It appears that the flight is no longer on sale, but the travel company won’t give me the deposit back. They say if I cancel they will keep the deposit and I will be liable for a cancellation fee. What can I do?

Lindsay H

A First, I am sorry that you were advised to book a trip for November 2020 over a year ahead. Whoever recommended this course of action has placed you at an entirely needless risk of disagreeable schedule changes (which may be what is happening in your case) and of losing money if your circumstances were to change.

Experience shows that there is no chance of a November departure to Mexico selling out more than a week or so before departure, so had you asked me for advice I would have suggested you started looking in late October 2020 rather than a year earlier. Even now, in mid-January, all-inclusive trips to Mexico are on sale for £714 per person from Tui for travellers who can depart imminently.

You are, though, theoretically committed to the holiday you booked. Should you cancel, not only is your £250 deposit at risk – you may also be pursued by the travel firm for the remainder of the deposit, typically 10 per cent of the holiday price. So for a family holiday priced at £4,000, you could be liable to pay an extra £150.

Right now, though, I suggest all you can do is wait. The company may not be in much of a hurry to publish its final winter plans – right now, most travellers are only booking their summer 2020 holidays. There is a fair chance the trip will go ahead as you planned, in which case you will, I imagine, be happy. Or it will be cancelled, or switched to different dates, whereupon you can cancel and simply claim your deposit back. If this happens, then I strongly suggest you wait until the autumn before looking for a replacement trip.

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Q What are the best options for travelling to Tbilisi from Scotland? It doesn’t look easy.

GTMcM

A On the contrary, reaching the Georgian capital is straightforward from the UK – so long as you are happy to touch down in the city of Kutaisi, about 150 miles short of the capital.

Kutaisi is a hub for the excellent low-cost airline, Wizz Air, which has links to the airport from a couple of dozen European cities. None are in Scotland (because the distance makes it touch-and-go to operate a round trip in a day), but my recommendation for a connecting point is either Budapest or Prague.

Both capitals have connections from Scotland (Budapest on Wizz Air from both Edinburgh and Glasgow; Prague on easyJet or Ryanair from Edinburgh, or Jet2 from Glasgow). Both Budapest and Prague are great cities in their own right, and well worth a stopover. That is just as well, because you will be combining two low-cost flights. This practice involves taking a bit of a chance: if the first arrives late and you miss the second, you have no comeback. To minimise the risk of disruption, it helps to build in a stopover, possibly in Budapest outbound and Prague inbound.

Alternatively, head for lovely Luton by rail or road, and and take one of the nonstop flights from there direct to Kutaisi. Once you touch down in the Georgian city, onward travel to Tbilisi is easy. Fast minibuses take about three hours, or slow trains about four. But best to make an adventure of it, travelling first to Stalin’s hometown, Gori, and on to the historic religious centre of Mtskheta before the joys of the capital itself.

Of course you could make life easier and book a through-ticket with an airline. If this is your preferred choice, I recommend Turkish Airlines from Edinburgh via Istanbul – except for the timings, which involve a 3.15am arrival in Tbilisi and a 4.25am departure.

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