Bag late? Alaska Airlines owes you for what you had to buy.

At the airline’s baggage desk before you leave the baggage hall: show your bag tag and boarding pass, describe the bag, give a delivery address, and take the ten-character file reference (airport code, airline code, five digits) away with you. If you have already left, use the airline’s baggage page or phone line the same day. The PIR is not the claim; the written claim with the amounts follows within 7 days for damage and 21 days for delay on international trips.

1,519 Special Drawing Rights per passenger, about $2,100 at 1.37 US dollars per SDR, in force since 28 December 2024. Some airline pages still print the old 1,288 SDR figure; a claim should cite the current one. Within the United States the DOT rule sets a minimum of $4,700 per passenger since 22 January 2025.

Yes. Enter your mobile number at the top of this page and we text you first. The assistant reads the photo, asks for whatever is missing, tells you what the airline owes and, when you reply GO, sends a link to start your case. After that the airline’s replies, the decisions and the reminders all come by text, and you answer with one word. Your case page on the web holds the complete file whenever you want to look. How texting works, and how to stop it.

The fee is worked out from the airline’s reply, so that reply has to reach your claim address. If your airline takes claims through its own web form, you enter your claim address as the contact email; if nothing from the airline has reached it within 7 days of starting your case, the plan switches to One claim and the $49 is invoiced to you. We warn you three days before. You pay nothing at the start and no card is taken: the one-paragraph authorisation you sign with your claim authorises the fee. The airline pays you directly, never us. When its payment is confirmed, you record the amount on your case page and 25% of it is invoiced to you by payment link, due within 14 days. The fee is worked out from the airline’s own letter, which lands in your case address, so there is nothing to argue about; if the letter says more than you record, the fee is on the letter’s figure unless you show the airline paid less. Saving a card on your case page is optional; the invoice can be paid by link either way. If the airline pays nothing, you owe nothing.

You can have the letter in about ten minutes. Airlines usually reply within two to six weeks. International rules give the airline no fixed deadline, so the letter sets one: 30 days. If they miss it, the next step is already written for you.

No. The airport report gives you a file reference and starts the clock, but the airline owes you nothing until you send a written claim with the amounts. That is the letter this page builds. On international trips the written claim must arrive within 21 days of getting the bag back, or within 7 days for damage.

You do not have to. The rules entitle you to money. The letter says so, and if the airline replies with an offer that is too low, the “If they offer too little” tab tells you exactly what to send back.

Per ticketed passenger, whatever the number of bags. A family of four has four limits. Add each person under About you and mark whose things are whose; the letter schedules each passenger separately so the airline cannot settle the whole family against one limit. One bag shared by two passengers works the same way: list both, mark whose things are whose, and each person’s things count against that person’s own limit. The name on the bag tag does not decide it.

“Reasonable” is judged by your circumstances. Say what the trip was for under What you had to buy, and why each purchase was needed; the letter explains it and asks for the full amount. Keep the invitation or booking with the receipts. What the airline cannot do is cap purchases per day or pay half for clothing.

Then it becomes a delay claim instead of a lost-bag claim: the airline still owes you for what you had to buy while it was missing, and the bag fee if it was late enough. Tell us the day it came back and the numbers update.

The rules apply to every airline flying to, from or within the United States. We keep a checked list of where each airline takes claims and its own reporting deadlines for the airlines most people fly. If yours is not on the list, the claim works the same; you send it to the address on your airport report.

Your draft stays in your own browser until you start a case. If you do, your case is stored on our servers in the United States and used only to run your claim. We email you about your case and nothing else, we never sell your details, and we delete your case when you ask.