[notagain]

I also posted this in baggage, but it's really a customer service issue.

We flew into Denver December 29th to find our booster seat was lost. Elicited the help of an agent, who elicited the help of another agent, but no one could find the seat. We were introduced to yet another agent who seemed quite stressed dealing with baggage issues. She gave us a phone number and told me to call before midnight and speak with someone or leave a message and they would deliver the bag to my home.

I left a long message.

Next day my wife and I get very sick (she's still sick and going to Dr. on Monday) and end up in bed for a week. During that time we received a call telling us the seat had been found and it was there for our pickup. Again, being sick, having work issues and trying to deal with a toddler while school is closed completely washed away memory of the booster seat.

Tonight I get a call from an agent telling me the seat was about to be shipped to headquarters but we could pick it up tonight without a charge. I mentioned I was told to call and leave a message the night of my flight and the airline would deliver the bags. "We have very good agents and none of them would have told you you could leave a message as a claim," was the response. She then looked into the time the bag was put on the airplane and when it was checked into DIA and told me she could see the bag was there on time and insinuated we probably just missed it and it was our responsibility to have filed a claim at the airport.

I again mentioned the whole story of working with the agents and the final agent who seemed stressed and gave me the phone number, but didn't say anything about needing to file a claim in writing at the airport. She was again doubtful this was the case, then told me the only thing they could do was hold the bag for a day and I could just drive all the way back to the Denver airport and pick it up or I would have to pay shipping costs to retrieve the bag from the central office.

I hasten to say I became a little rude at that point stating I could understand the airline wants to save money by not delivering the bag to me, but it felt rather discourteous of them to lose our car seat, keep us in the airport with a toddler, imply we had ample time to make a claim during the time we were ill and bedridden, claim my word wasn't as acceptable as her perception of the quality of her colleagues, back this up with a time stamp, then give us the only option of paying to drive back to the airport to pick up the seat.

She assured me it wasn't a matter of money, they could have driven the bag to us if we had filed a claim and we didn't so they wont. Case closed.

I'm not simply upset, I'm ****** off. I first filed a written claim with the Department of Transportation's Aviation Consumer Protection Division, then with the airline itself.

I doubt they'll deliver our booster seat, but just calculated we have 4 RT flight this year (times 3 people) and I am going to use Frontier Airlines rather than Southwest.