The belt stops, the hall empties, and your bag never appears. What you do in the next hour decides whether you get paid — and how much. It is not luck. It comes down to three documents and three dates.
The single most important thing: do not leave the baggage reclaim area before you file a PIR (Property Irregularity Report) at the airline desk. Without a PIR reference number, every claim starts at a serious disadvantage.
On international flights the Montreal Convention (1999) applies. Article 31 sets hard deadlines, and missing them is the most common reason claims are rejected:
| What happened | Written notice within | Counting from |
|---|---|---|
| Bag arrived damaged | 7 days | the day you received it |
| Bag was delayed | 21 days | the day it was placed at your disposal |
| Court claim | 2 years | arrival, or the date you should have arrived |
Note: the PIR you filed at the airport is not always treated as the written complaint the Convention requires. Send a separate, dated email to the airline with the PIR number, flight details and an itemised description — and keep the delivery confirmation.
The Convention sets a ceiling on the airline's liability for checked baggage. It is reviewed for inflation every five years, and on 28 December 2024 it rose from 1,288 to 1,519 SDR per passenger — roughly US$2,000.
Plenty of guides still quote the old figure. If an airline quotes you a lower ceiling, point it to the 2024 revision.
What is an SDR? A unit of account used by the IMF, based on a basket of five currencies. Its value in dollars moves daily, so there is no fixed figure in your own currency. Anyone promising you an exact fixed amount is cutting corners.
The disappointing part: the ceiling is not an automatic payout. It is the maximum. In practice you are paid for proven loss — receipts, a contents list, evidence of value. A claim that says "my bag is gone, pay me the maximum" with nothing attached gets a token offer.
Usually covered: essential purchases during the delay (basic clothing, toiletries, a phone charger), the value of lost contents, and damage to the bag itself.
Usually not covered: ordinary wear and tear (scuffs, a bent wheel), items that should never have been checked in the first place, and damage caused by a defect in the item itself.
The trick almost nobody uses: if you are travelling with equipment worth more than the ceiling, you can declare a special interest at check-in and pay a small supplementary fee. The ceiling then rises to the value you declared. It costs one minute at the desk and changes the whole calculation.
This is the most common misunderstanding. They are two separate tracks, and the same flight can trigger both:
A delay that made you miss a hotel night or a cruise departure falls under Article 19 (damage caused by delay) — again, separate from the fixed sum. The flight side is covered in full in our flight delay and cancellation compensation guide.
A policy with baggage cover usually pays faster than an airline. But most policies are secondary: they cover what the airline did not, and they will ask to see the airline's response first. So even if you are insured, file the PIR and claim from the airline anyway.
A baggage claim against an airline is something you can do yourself, for free: an online form on the airline's site, plus your PIR and receipts. Claims companies specialise mainly in flight compensation (delays, cancellations) and take a percentage of what you win. If your problem is only the suitcase, go straight to the airline and keep the money.
When is help worth it? When the flight itself was also delayed or cancelled, when the airline has ignored you for months, or when the sum is large and the process has stalled.
Was the flight itself delayed or cancelled too?
That is a separate track from the baggage, and eligibility can be checked with no upfront cost. File the baggage claim directly with the airline.
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