Warning - Never Ever trust Princess EZ Check in Seattle

[notentirelynormal]

It could have been taken by someone at the home airport too.

[cherylandtk]

I understood the OP was saying that in their initial investigation, the bag was never scanned at the port, and there is no further scan or luggage handling record (i.e. The airline does not have any record of it either). So much less likely that it was taken at the home airport.

[Lucky TGO]

My friends always just take there own bags they always do the walk off.

Tony

[moki'smommy]

Theoretically - it could have been taken by someone who walks off with their luggage.

 

Theoretically it could have been taken by anyone onboard the ship while it was sitting out in the hallway....but why?

 

And again, certainly another guest could have taken it from the hallway and done a self-disembarkation with it...again, why?

 

Makes more sense that Princess personnel took it from the room to somewhere in the luggage hold area, but there is no explanation as to what happened from there. One would hope that once Princess has picked it up from the cabin door area, no one else would have access to the EZ Check bags. There is no reason to put it out where other people claim their bags--it should go directly to the truck to the airport.

 

Yes, I always used to do self disembarkation--not for time issues, but for luggage safety. However, now with a handicapped family member, easy counts.

[VibeGuy]

I don't think the fact that the bag didn't get scanned at the cruise terminal necessarily means it didn't get to the airport - scans get missed all the time with handheld equipment.

 

I would call the carrier that operated your first flight (sounds like AA) and ask them to check your PNR and that of your travel companion for bag tag numbers and see if there are any scans in *their* system.

 

If 500 bags off a sailing use EZ, a 1% scan failure rate (comparable to UPS or the airlines), it's routine that five bags don't get read. But if the next step in the service is otherwise 99% reliable, it takes 20 sailings to make it likely that the same bag misses two scans in a row.

 

My money is that it made it into AA's system.

[fishywood]

One would hope that once Princess has picked it up from the cabin door area' date=' no one else would have access to the EZ Check bags. There is no reason to put it out where other people claim their bags--it should go directly to the truck to the airport.

 

[/quote']

 

Before the bag is handed over to the independent company that services EZ Check it is taken to the same baggage hall as all other bags as it is subject to the same processes for detecting illegal contents as well as possibly being randomly pulled out for a more thorough inspection. It is likely nowhere nearly as adequately isolated from the bags to be claimed as we would think or assume.

 

Now that further information has been supplied we can now say that the OP's unfortunate circumstance--the bag never being scanned into the system thus essentially becoming untraceable--is unique to neither EZ Check nor Seattle. So hopefully the inflammatory thread title will not scare anyone off.

Edited July 1, 2016 by fishywood

[moki'smommy]

The thread title represents a frustrated and angry OP who has been very reasonable in explaining the situation. I find the title to be one person's opinion, and in this case it is a justifiable opinion.

 

This poster doesn't strike me as a hothead or otherwise unreasonable. They are just someone who would like to have their stuff back!

[critterchick]

Just wondering why anyone would want to steal someone's used clothes?

 

In the hopes that the person also packed valuable items in the bag.

Edited July 1, 2016 by critterchick

[Princess Chatterer]

OK' date=' this last post from Princess has me puzzled. If the bag was tagged with the EZ Check tags, why would it ever have been placed where it could have been mistakenly taken by another passenger? Are those bags not segregated when they are placed in the luggage hold area? [/quote']

 

Princess was very quick to respond to the previous questions but has not responded with the answers to these specific questions (so far). Go figure.

[Princess Chatterer]

It could have been taken by someone at the home airport too.

 

The bag was never scanned out by EZ Check at the cruise terminal, was never scanned by AA at SEA and was never scanned at the "home airport." DW's bag that was left in the hallway right next to mine and tagged in the same manner as directed by Princess was scanned at each and every step of the way.

Edited July 1, 2016 by Princess Chatterer

[Princess Chatterer]

The title of this discussion is my way of clearly pointing that you should NEVER assume that your bag is secure in the EZ Check system as I formerly did. I used every precaution. Brand new well constructed bag, TSA four digit lock, Name tag with our name, phone number, email address tags on the outside of the bag, same personal info tag inside the bag on the zipper, and a copy of our names and air itinerary easily seen when the bag is opened. The bag did not contain any thing that could be pawned. Just the normal "stuff" you bring on the cruise and of course those pricey Princess photos and typical Alaska souvenirs. The hard part now is remembering each and every item in the "stuff." Having sales receipts for every item in the "stuff" is completely impossible. Even getting fairly accurate estimates is a nightmare.

[Coral]

Yes' date=' I always used to do self disembarkation--not for time issues, but for luggage safety. However, now with a handicapped family member, easy counts.[/quote']

 

Oh I so know! I am ok with carrying my own bag but when I traveled with a disabled parent, carrying 4 suitcases and 2 carryons on my own was too much at times (though I had to do it enough). I also use EZ Check whenever I can.

[greenie082756]

I have not yet used the EZ baggage system and probably will not ever.

 

I have always had an uneasy feeling about the luggage process.

 

I worry until I see them in our cabin and I worry until I see them in the disembarkation warehouse area. :eek:

 

I would like to know when the luggage is scanned for disembarkation as we leave our belongings out in the hallway expecting some care to be given.

 

I think each piece that is in the hallway should be scanned before being transferred to below. Does anyone know when they are scanned??

 

OP - I sure hope you find your luggage. What a pain in the you know where to have to go through just because IMHO someone did not do their job correctly.

[moki'smommy]

Unless you are using EZ Check (where they have the airline tags applied and you have paid to have them transported to the home airport), I don't think they are scanned at all.

 

I could be wrong, but all I remember for standard disembarkation is a tag with a color and group number (like Red 3), not any bar coded tag. Of course we also had our own tags with our name and address.

[dforeigner]

Hope the OP is able to locate the missing piece of luggage.

 

While in the topic of luggage, we always print out an address, phone number, and itinerary on regular paper and place said information on an outside pocked of each piece of luggage. Hence if the luggage tags were to get ripped off, there is still information as to who the luggage belongs to.

[Colo Cruiser]

Hope they find the bag.

[Princess Chatterer]

OK' date=' this last post from Princess has me puzzled. If the bag was tagged with the EZ Check tags, why would it ever have been placed where it could have been mistakenly taken by another passenger? [b'] Are those bags not segregated when they are placed in the luggage hold area?[/b]

 

Here's what Princess says about your question and yes the missing bag was placed next to all the other bags in the ship hallway with an EZ Check BBBB tag securely fastened:

"Yes those bags are separated from the others. Unfortunately, I do not know exactly what happened in this instance."

 

[RDC1]

The bag was never scanned out by EZ Check at the cruise terminal, was never scanned by AA at SEA and was never scanned at the "home airport." DW's bag that was left in the hallway right next to mine and tagged in the same manner as directed by Princess was scanned at each and every step of the way.

 

What kind of tag do they use for easy check? Is it the same type of loop through tag that is used for normal departures?

[Princess Chatterer]

What kind of tag do they use for easy check? Is it the same type of loop through tag that is used for normal departures?

 

EZ Check bag tag looks like the typical airline bag tag. You attach it to the bag handle in exactly the same way that the airline attaches an airline bag tag. Part of the underside of the EZ Check bag tag is sticky. Princess EZ check doesn't give you a colored bag tag or a bag tag receipt to show as you disembark. They only give you an EZ Check sticker on your disembarkation information sheet.

 

Sometime after you put your bag in the hall with the EZ Check bag tag Princess or somebody in the process adds the real airline bag tag. When the bag reaches "home" you have two bag tags on your luggage handle. The one shown below from Princess and the one from the airline. On the Princess printed boarding pass you will receive with the EZ check bag tag you can see your real airline bag tag number for the first time but the actual EZ Check bag tag doesn't show the airline bag tag number. The EZ Check bag tag does show the airline flight number of your flight out of Seattle but not your connecting flight if you have one.

 

[RDC1]

The odds of that kind of tag coming off by itself is rather low (assuming like airline tags it has about 6 inches of sticky surface and is made out of tear resistant material).

[abbydancer2003]

I hope the bag shows up. It can happen. My sister and family once had all their luggage disappear when flying home from skiing. A week later the luggage all showed up. They'd missed their original flight, and changed the rerouting, and the luggage went with the flight they were first routed to but didn't take. Apparently it sat in a airline luggage center and was matched during some sort of scan.

 

On our TA last fall, my husband's bag didn't show up. He walked the entire luggage area, and finally found it with different colored tags. Then, after our flight home, we got a call when we were on our way home from the airport. Apparently somebody else had the exact same bag as him, and he took the wrong one by mistake. United scanned the tag and called us, so we turned around and exchanged bags.

 

Now we put the colored tags on in two places, and we double check our id tags.

 

Good luck!

[HUNKY]

Hopefully nothing irreplaceable was in the lost luggage.

[pris993]

We are in a minority, in that we will not even consider using EZ Check at any port or with any cruise line. Our reasoning is quite simple. It is not a big deal for us to take our own luggage to the airport and personally hand it over to the airline. We put zip ties on our bags so that if they are opened we will know. When we get the luggage in the port, we check to see if there was any tampering. We then take the luggage to the airport (usually in a taxi or Uber car) and simply turn it over to the airline. If our luggage were to disappear we then know it was the airline (which we can prove with their own system) and its usually pretty easy to trace. But when you use EZ Check from a ship you are adding a few additional steps between when you check the luggage and when it is supposed to appear at your destination airport. If anything goes wrong it can be difficult to assess blame...and you can get caught up in the blame game (the airline can blame the port, the port the airline, etc).

 

Hank

 

I am with you, we would never - ever do anything other than handle our luggage, even when we check in at a hotel we take our luggage up with us to the room with the bell man.

 

In 30+ years of travel only had a bag missing twice. Once in Telviv, when we were detained in passport control and someone mistakenly picked up the wrong bag, it was returned the next day. And again, once in Rome when we did a transfer on Air France in Paris to Aitalia a partner airline... Air France tracked the bag and put in on a flight later in the day.

 

We also try to travel in the most direct route on the same airline carrier if at all possible, bags can go missing in transfers between carriers more easily.

[moki'smommy]

I am with you, we would never - ever do anything other than handle our luggage, even when we check in at a hotel we take our luggage up with us to the room with the bell man.

 

In 30+ years of travel only had a bag missing twice. Once in Telviv, when we were detained in passport control and someone mistakenly picked up the wrong bag, it was returned the next day. And again, once in Rome when we did a transfer on Air France in Paris to Aitalia a partner airline... Air France tracked the bag and put in on a flight later in the day.

 

We also try to travel in the most direct route on the same airline carrier if at all possible, bags can go missing in transfers between carriers more easily.

 

You must not go international thru JFK. My daughter lived in London for grad school which meant a lot of flights between home and Heathrow. EVERY time we went thru JFK, bags did not arrive with us. In fairness, they weren't really "lost," they were put on another flight and arrived hours to a day later. It didn't matter which direction or how long the layover was.

 

The other prime time for lost bags on airlines is any time you have a flight change--no matter what they tell you about re-routing your bags to keep them with you, it typically doesn't happen. The usual is that you get from home airport to hub city only to be told that your connecting flight is canceled...or your original flight ran late and the connecting flight has departed and you are on the next one. AA was so ready for this once that when I made it to my connecting gate they told me that I'd already been booked on the next flight as they didn't think I'd make it! They quickly let me board the original flight.

 

BUT none of this affects OP as the only official answer is that their bag never made it to the airline.

[Cruiserkenn]

I have used EZ Check in Seattle, at least six times, following Alaska cruises.

My airline has always been Southwest.

 

I have had nothing but positive experiences with EZ Check.

 

Likewise, I always have good baggage experiences with Southwest.

 

Sorry for any bad experiences, but EZ Check in Seattle is great, based upon numerous positive experiences.