Note to American Airlines.... "You suck!"

On this most recent trip back to the states, we flew American Airlines as per our usual route... through Dallas. For once everything went smoothly and we got into Albuquerque with no issues. We get back to the homestead and settle in for a good nights sleep....ahh, ignorance is bliss. The following day we begin to unpack our bags. Low and behold when we open one of our bags we notice that one of our camera cases is sitting on top of our cloths (not in amongst the cloths like it began the trip). "Self, Hmmm, that is odd". Oh wait...the zipper on the case is open..."self, that can't be good". Oh crap...sure enough there is a big void where our camcorder used to be. "Self, what was on the tape....oh crap...all of Payton's first year...including those first steps we were going to post on the blog". As outrage begins to settle in it becomes very evident that the camcorder did not unzip itself and walk away. Who would do this?! Our best guess is a baggage handler in Costa Rica but obviously we have no way to prove that.

Next step...call AA and figure out what to do. Thinking that my long standing elite status will get me somewhere...I call the frequent flier line. After about 5 minutes I get redirected to the local Albuquerque baggage department as they handle these types of things. Well, I try to get a hold of them for 4 days and leave numerous messages. No one calls and no one answers. Back to the elite line. I finally get a hold of someone who tells me that for theft I actually need to file a complaint through email....there is no direct line to this department apparently. So far the customer service has not been a service at all. Since I have no choice I send the following email off to the mysterious department:

To whom this may concern,

On Sept 29, 2007 my family and I traveled from Costa Rica to Albuquerque. Upon reaching Albuquerque and opening our luggage we immediately noticed that our camcorder (Canon Elura-100) was missing - along with the video footage of my daughters first footsteps!! The camcorder case was no longer tucked in between the clothing where I packed it for protection. Instead it was lying on top with the zipper opened and the camcorder missing. This is not a question of a missing item, this is a question of a stolen item since the case was still in the bag, displaced and tampered with. In my mind this is clearly an American Airline issue. When I dropped the bag off at the ticket counter I trusted that American would respect and protect my baggage. Upon retrieval of my bag from AA, that trust was shattered. I have been a long-time AAdvantage member and so far your response in this issue has been terrible - something I did not expect for a frequent customer. I initially got routed to ABQ AA local baggage. They never picked up the phone and never responded to my messages. Finally after 4 days of being ignored, I called AAdvantage customer service and got routed to this email address. To be honest I have very little confidence in AA at this point and have serious doubts about your "customer service" policy. This is something that will definitely impact my carrier decision in the future.

Apparently this email eventually got somewhere because 2 weeks later I received a form letter from American which requires me to provide all sorts of documentation which I do not have with me (like the baggage tag, copy of the original receipt for all missing items). Oh, and I need to get it all to them within 45 days of the incident...uh, it has already been 3 weeks due to their slow asses. So basically we are SOL....camcorder lost...and more importantly....memories lost. So you can all officially thank American Airlines for the fact that you will never see Payton's first steps.

PS - I was going to add the AA logo at the top of this post...but after reading the AA legal disclaimers I figured that would be a violation in some manner and who knows what the hell that would mean.