Hi - the same thing happened to me on a flight from Tampa to Midway in December. Brand new luggage was ruined because they left it in dirty water and it was soaked through. The contents were also ruined. Most were new Christmas gifts (including the luggage!) from family and had tags on (no price tages, but identifying info) Southwest baggage promised to reimburse me, but first had to send all items to Dallas. They told me that they would do research to assess fair value of items and reimburse me. After 4 weeks the sent a letter telling me that they needed reciepts for all items. I wrote back reminding them many items still had tags, and that they had told me I did not need reciepts 4 weeks ago. They wrote again telling me they would reimburse me and then sent a check for $200. The luggage alone cost more than $400! They did not detail out how they came up with this amount. Besides the horrible customer service on the luggage, the whole trip from Tampa was the worst experience in my life. The jet had some mechanical issue and so flight was delayed out of Tampa and so missed my connection in Midway by 10 minutes. Southwest did not hold the flight at Midway even though they knew we would be late as they had overbooked that flight. I ended up standing in lines for 5 hours trying to get standby to San Jose (or any airport nearby). In the end I had to stay overnight and Southwest refused to compensate me (still have a claim for that). Southwest advised me to NOT get my luggage at Midway as that would take an additional 2 hours and that it would be safe if left with them. Ha! Considering how callous they had been with people up to that point, I guess it would be just like them to leave the luggage out to be soaked and ruined and then put me though lots of time and headaches trying to get a fair settlement. I will NEVER fly that airline again.
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