On four occasions, BOH editors found themselves stranded without checked luggage. Each time has left us a bit wiser from the school of hard knocks. Whether caused by short layovers, interlining bags between airlines, or just plain bad luck, the risk of lost luggage is always present. Here’s what we discovered that has continued to work.
Think minimalist. If you stay in a nice condo with a built-in washer/dryer you should be able to do just fine with one change of cloths…for weeks. Another alternative is places like “Ship Stix”. They specialize in golf clubs but will do other bags too. They will pick-up, ship and deliver your bags to you … to and from Hawaii.
Extreme weather events will also delay your bag from one place to the other. The most poignant case for me was when I flew from Portland through Newark to Washington DC, just before Superstorm Sandy made landfall on the East Coat. Yes, my bag never made it out of Newark. And it had all of my clothes in it as I was taking a multiple-stop trip at the time for different events. At United, I told them that I needed to buy clothes and incidentals to get by. They, at the time, told me to spend no more than $150 (since then, knowing if it went over, they would still probably reimburse me). So off to Target, I went to buy clothes for my time in DC, and sure enough, my bag, which was tagged as a status bag, only made it back to me when I came home, to HNL, five days later. Key to this…discuss any lost bag early with the airline before leaving the baggage claim.