How I found the bag (Day 3 and 4)

Day 3 (Aug 12)




I took the earliest flight out of London in the morning (7am). I got to Brussels airport (BRU) at 9am. This was the nicest flight so far this trip, since it was only an hour long. On the plane, I copied on paper from an electronic file the contents of the bag that L helped me translate into French. Just in case I had to leave a note with the baggage people in Brussels and if they don't speak much English (we are trying to cover all possibilities). In the baggage claim area, I located the Aviaparnter counter who was in charge of 10+ airlines' baggage services in BRU.



The Aviaparnter (I will call it AV from now on) staff told me that they found the bag on July 17 and shipped it out. But they no longer had any information on the bag (or the tag number) since it's been almost a month ago. I told them thatthe BA staff in London said that they never received it (since it was never scanned in London). The AV staff told me that BA at London Heathrow had been a mess between June and July, and therefore was not reliable. Then I asked to check the tagless bags in BRU since I was there already. They told me to wait until 1pm since one of them went home with the key to the tagless bag room by mistake and he would start work at 1pm.

So after I looked around the baggage claim area and didn’t see my bag (AV had bags lying around to process, so in a very organized fashion), I went to downtown Brussels for some shopping. Finding the bag seemed unlikely to me since Day 2 in London, after knowing that I couldn’t see all possible bags and I figured my bag was more likely to go tagless in London since BRU had seen the tag on July 17 and tried to ship it out. I was trying to shop for some of our missing items that we got from Belgium. The problem was that it was a Sunday and most shops close on Sundays. So I didn’t get to buy from the shops we had been to. I did manage to buy some food items such as chocolate (duh, Belgian chocolate) and some biscuits (from Dandoy, very famous in Brussels). I also struggled to decide if I should buy a very nice looking strawberry cream pie for L. L loved it when we saw it but we were too full to order it. I finally decided not to since there were 3 more flights until I got home and the pie wouldn’t really survive the trip. I then hit the market and bought some waffles (again duh, Belgian waffles or more esp. Liege waffles) that could be reheated using a toaster. After a little bit of shopping spree and feeling a little better (shopping does make you feel better), I took the train back to the airport.

After passing the security to the baggage claim area (it was very easy, just ring up the AV from the phone and the security official let me go), the AV staff took me to the room with all their tagless bags (I think it could also be all the tagless bags in BRU). Once I walked in the room, I noticed this black suitcase that looked very familiar to me. I didn’t jump on it since the staff was explaining how they lay out the bags according to the days they were found (nicely organized). Afterward, I started checking the bags and approached the black suitcase that looked familiar. I opened the zipper and found items that looked like our belongings. I started shaking, opened the bag completely and found exactly what we had been missing for the past month. BAG FOUND. The whole trip to London and Brussels was complete (and with success). I wanted to call L right away but I should ask the AV staff about any paperwork to follow. There wasn’t any paperwork needed, and the AV staff was very nice to photocopy my flight info and address and stick it to the bag. I spent the next 30 min calling L and rearranging the bag such that the most important contents would be in the carry-on.

I found the bag around 2:30pm and my flight was 9pm. I asked if I would catch an earlier flight, but had to pay 50 euro more for fee. I'd rather wait and I did. I bought bright color straps to wrap around the bag to make it more identifiable. Everything went smoothly and my bag was there for me when I landed in London.

Day 4 (Aug 13).

Flight: LHR->ORD->LAX
Everything went how it was supposed to be. Flight from London to Los Angeles was long, but finding all my bags in the baggage claim area in LAX and L waiting was the biggest reward. Now L and I can move on with our lives.