American Airlines’s own deadlines, the amounts the law makes it pay, and the claim channels a person has checked against American Airlines’s pages.
Build your claim against American Airlines → Free. Your amount, deadlines and letter in about ten minutes.
The ceiling is set by law, not by the airline. On an international trip the Montreal Convention caps liability at 1,519 SDR per passenger, about $2,081. On a trip within the United States the DOT cap is $4,700 per passenger. What you actually recover is what you can show: contents at replacement cost plus what you had to buy while the bag was missing, and the bag fee refunded on top when the bag is late enough.
American Airlines’s own page states: “$4,700 per ticketed passenger for travel on/after 2025-01-22 (domestic); 1,519 SDR per passenger for international travel on/after 2024-12-28 — Form OP124 rev 12/28/2024 (the delayed-or-damaged page itself prints no figure)”.
The law sets the outer limits regardless: on international trips, a written claim within 7 days for damage and 21 days for delay (counted from the day you get the bag), a bag deemed lost after 21 days, and 2 years to sue. Read our plain-English guide to the Montreal Convention or the DOT rules for domestic trips.
Source: American Airlines’s baggage pages and contract of carriage.
Report the bag before you leave the baggage hall and get the file reference: ten characters, airport code, airline code, five digits. The first-hour checklist walks you through it with American Airlines’s own window counting down.
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American Airlines’s own rule is within 4 hours. Report before you leave the airport whenever you can; the file reference from that report is what the claim is built on.
Up to the legal cap for your trip: about $2,081 per passenger on an international trip, up to $4,700 within the United States. The amount depends on what was in the bag and what you can show you paid.
Through the channels listed on this page, which a person has checked against American Airlines’s own pages.