What Do I Do If My Baggage Was Damaged with Alaska Air?
It's never an ideal situation when you discover your baggage has been damaged when you get to the carousel, but as long as you report the damage in person to an Alaska Air agent within 24 hours of arriving for domestic travel, they can assess the damage and provide solutions. Keep in mind that you may need to submit receipts in order to be reimbursed.
Your Alaska Airlines flight just touched down not too long ago and you're headed to the baggage claim. You grab your baggage only to find it's damaged. What do you do? What is Alaska's policy about damaged baggage? This guide will give you an overview as well as the steps you need to take should this happen to you.
Damaged Baggage Policy
- Report damaged baggage in person at the airport immediately. Alaska Air cannot award compensation without a claim report on file and you must show an agent any damaged baggage right after you pick it up from the carousel.
- If you can't present the damaged baggage for inspection right away for any reason, you still have 24 hours for domestic travel and 7 business days for international to report the damage.
- Also hold onto your ticket receipts and baggage claim checks.
- Damage to baggage that is not a result of normal wear and tear, but the baggage is still usable, is resolved in one of four ways.
- Reimbursement if you have to pay for repairs
- Alaska Air paying for the repairs themselves
- Replacement of the damaged bag
- Immediate settlement with a discount code or check.
- Examples of damages that might not be covered include damages caused by overpacked or overweight baggage, or items inside the baggage that have inadequate protection. Items like baby strollers or musical instruments are handled on a case by case basis and the airline will need to review how the item was transported.
Filing a Damaged Baggage Claim
- After you present the damage to an Alaska Air agent, they may advise you to fill out and send a Statement of Damage or Missing Property, located here https://resource.alaskaair.net/-/media/Images/pages/travel-info/baggage/2-5303?v=1
- Damages covered by Alaska Air require an estimate or repair bill to be submitted within 60 days of your travel date.
- No further action is necessary if an immediate settlement is reached. Please contact a local baggage office on this page alaskaair.com/stations or the main number for more information.
Further questions?
Ask a followup or related question and we will try to provide an answer in seconds.
Christian has been writing about long hold times and customer service call center experiences since 2010. He's been featured in Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and the Boston Globe.
Solutions to similar problems
Why does GetHuman Write How-to Guides for Alaska Airlines Problems?
GetHuman has been working for over 10 years on sourcing information about big organizations like Alaska Airlines in order to help customers resolve customer service issues faster. We started with contact information and fastest ways to reach a human at big companies. Particularly ones with slow or complicated IVR or phone menu systems. Or companies that have self-serve help forums instead of a customer service department. From there, we realized that consumers still needed more detailed help solving the most common problems, so we expanded to this set of guides, which grows every day. And if you spot any issues with our What Do I Do If My Baggage Was Damaged with Alaska Air? guide, please let us know by sending us feedback. We want to be as helpful as possible. If you appreciated this guide, please share it with your favorite people. Our free information and tools is powered by you, the customer. The more people that use it, the better it gets.