I purchased a ticket to fly to Milan and when I arrived in Milan (surprise!) ALL of my luggage was lost. I was extremely upset, as this was my first trip to Europe, and my chance to see my parent’s birthplace, and I had looked forward to this vacation all year….bought special clothes…BUT ALITALIA RUINED EVERYTHING because they lost my luggage—ALL OF MY LUGGAGE! I had NOTHING! They lost my clothes, my shoes, my boots (it was snowing!), my makeup, my toiletries, everything! I was instructed (and reassured) at the Lost Luggage counter in Milan that I would be reimbursed for everything…as long as I kept my receipts and filed my claim on time. I did that. I was told to purchase whatever I needed to continue my vacation- THAT WAS EVERYTHING! INCLUDING LUGGAGE, AS MY “VACATION” was a city a day vacation: I was travelling from city to city, including going to France. Even though I was going to be reimbursed, in order to try to save money, I shopped in the cheapest stores I could find (wasting my first day in Italy, missing train connections, it was very stressful) AND, I spent countless hours on the phone, wasting expensive cell minutes trying to track down my luggage, not speaking the language….and MY LUGGAGE WAS FINALLY RETURNED TO ME ONE WEEK LATER, AS I WAS LEAVING EUROPE! I never even opened it—I simply re-tagged it; and brought it to the airport……WHERE I WAS TOLD I WOULD HAVE TO PAY FOR EXTRA WEIGHT, BECAUSE I WAS NOW OVER THE WEIGHT LIMIT! (Well, of course I was, I had an entire extra set of clothes!) And no matter how many times I explained this to them, and showed them my PIR (Alitalia lost luggage doc) document, they sarcastically insisted that I had to pay or else the luggage would not get on the flight! SO, I threw out the replacement items until I got down to the acceptable weight! I absolutely refused to pay ANY more money out of pocket after the hell that they put me through that week….little did I know …the “hell” had ONLY just begun.
It has been 18 months since my trip.
My claim to Alitalia 18 months ago was for $1465.00 (at this point, I need to add interest to that). Since then, I have written over 40 letters and emails, and I have only (JUST) received $600 in compensation. (They still owe me $865.00 plus interest) They have been nasty, sarcastic, and have delayed, lied, and denied throughout the entire 18 months. The newest icing on the cake was an email from a “manager” [WOW] at Alitalia (I will save her name for the lawsuit….as I gave her an additional 30 days to get me my additional monies, or I will go to court)…..She is not the brightest bulb in the pack…..anyway, according to her last email, based on her math, Alitalia, now owes me $27,600, and I intend to sue for that amount IF I DO NOT RECEIVE MY BALANCE OWED…… ; )
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