What the airline owes while your bag is delayed: interim purchases, the bag-fee refund, the daily-allowance trick, and the deadline that starts on delivery.
A delayed bag is a claim in its own right, even if it turns up. The airline owes you the reasonable things you had to buy because the bag was not there: clothes, toiletries, a phone charger, medication, whatever you needed to get through the days without it.
Keep every receipt. “Reasonable” means what a sensible person would buy in your situation, not a new wardrobe; but airlines may not cap it at a flat daily amount or pay half for clothing on the theory that you keep the clothes. The US DOT has fined airlines for both.
The bag fee comes back too. Under the DOT’s 2024 refund rule the airline must refund the checked-bag fee when a bag is delayed more than 12 hours on a domestic flight, 15 hours on an international flight of up to 12 hours, or 30 hours on a longer international flight. You have to ask; the letter this site builds asks.
Deadlines. On an international trip the written claim for a delayed bag must reach the airline within 21 days of the day the bag was delivered to you. That clock does not start until you have the bag, so a bag that is still missing has no deadline running yet, but do not wait for it: file the interim-expense claim as soon as you have receipts and add to it later.
Work out your own claim → Two minutes to your amount and deadlines.
What you need to get through the days until the bag arrives, in the place you are in. On a beach holiday that is swimwear and sunscreen; at a winter conference it is a shirt, underwear, a charger and something warm. The test is whether a sensible person in your position would have bought it, not whether the airline’s call centre approves of it. Say what the trip was for in the claim; a suit bought for a wedding you flew in for is reasonable, and the letter should say why.
A typical claim for a bag that arrives on day three: two changes of clothes at $180, toiletries at $42, a phone charger at $29, and a taxi to the airport to collect the bag at $38, about $290 in all, plus the bag fee if the delay passed the threshold for the flight. On an international trip the whole amount sits comfortably under the $2,081 limit; on a domestic flight it sits under $4,700. Delay claims are the easiest money in baggage and the most often abandoned, because the bag came back and people feel the matter is closed. It is not: the receipts are yours to claim.
Not on a flight to, from or within the United States. Airlines like to quote a daily allowance, sometimes $50 or $75, and to pay half for clothing on the theory that you keep the clothes. The DOT has treated both as unfair and deceptive practices and has fined carriers for them. Claim the receipted amount and, if the airline answers with a per-day figure, say in one sentence that the rule does not allow one.
On an international trip, after 21 days from the date it should have arrived, or earlier if the airline admits it is gone. Many airlines declare a bag lost sooner under their own rules; some after five days. Once it is lost the claim changes shape: the contents up to the cap, not only the interim purchases. File the delay claim now anyway and say in it that the contents will be claimed if the bag is not delivered by the day the rule sets.
Then there are two claims in one letter: the interim purchases for the days without it, and either the repair or replacement of the bag or the missing items at replacement cost. Photograph the bag as it arrived, with the tag on, before you unpack it.
No. The purchases were made because of the airline’s failure; they are your loss to claim, not a loan.
Yes: the interim purchases, and the bag fee if the delay passed the threshold for your flight.