I flew Melbourne to Darwin a few weeks ago, and after a two hour delay in Melbourne we were told on arrival to Darwin that a pod of luggage had been taken off the plane in Melbourne before departure for safety reasons (luggage was making the plane too heavy or something, whatever).
A woman from Jet Star told us she'd text msg us all when our bags came in which would be about 1am in the morning on another flight. We were told we'd have to come pick up the bags ourselves the next day. Goodbye day trip I had planned. But I didnt have it as bad as some of the other passengers who lived more than 50km out of Darwin that had to come back, and I dread to think about what they would have had to go through.
Next day I tried to call baggage claims to see if my bag could be couriered to my hotel and discovered the joys of speaking to several different people in an offshore call centre, who could not give me a straight answer and could not trace my bag to double check it did arrive in Darwin. I was also told that I probably wouldnt be able to have it sent to me. So at the end of the day I cracked it and took a taxi myself down to Darwin Airport and voila! My bag was there all along, it took the girl at the service desk 10 minutes to retreive it for me, and she assured me that I would be reimbursed my taxi fare because I had to come get it.
So upon my return to Melb, I filled in the online form, faxed the reciepts like I was told to only to receive a letter a few days later to advise me that this wasnt possible. So back on the phone I got, and after more offshore calls I got a promise for someone to call me back.
A very nice AUSTRALIAN girl did call me back, and after hearing my saga again - I was told that I would be re-imbursed for my taxi fares finally. After making sure I knew it was against policy and she was doing me the biggest favour in the world. WTF? Wasnt it against their policy to refuse to on-deliver my bag? Every other airline can do it!!
So - even if you think its trivial (like a $60 taxi fare), keep fighting and keep pushing. A point has to be made, and they cant get away with stuff!
Below link is awesome, wish I had seen it before I started my phone call fight with whatever country I was speaking to (Manila?) and wasted a lot of time.
http://www.dontflyjetstar.com/news/how-contact-jetstar-phone-numbers-ema...