Customers could claim 2,500 miles whenever their bags failed to show up on the carousel within 20 minutes of arrival on a domestic flight. You could request the miles on your phone while standing at baggage claim, and in my experience claims were approved instantly.
When asked about an upcoming elimination of the checked baggage guarantee, a Delta Air Lines spokesperson wouldn’t deny it and only offered, “We have not made any announcement about a change to our program.” (I said in response, “well, if you’d made an announcement I wouldn’t be asking!”)
The person who shared this with me attributed it to the high cost of the program driven by awareness in viral TikTok videos and increasing ‘gaming’ of compensation.
However awareness always seemed high at baggage claim when Delta literally advertised it there:
In July 2009 Alaska Airlines introduced a Baggage Service Guarantee, offering miles or a discount on a future flight if bags took more than 25 minutes to arrive. A year later they reduced that to 20 minutes. (Oddly, Alaska’s website claims that their baggage guarantee was introduced in 2010, but that is not accurate.)
Delta, which competes directly with Alaska in Seattle, followed Alaska with its delivery commitment. Anecdotally passengers tell me they’ve been able to claim Delta’s guarantee more frequently than pre-pandemic. And Delta made it far easier to claim than Alaska – you actually have to go to Alaska’s baggage office within 2 hours of arrival to claim their miles or future discount. So the expected move may be a function of both Delta not being good enough at baggage delivery, and making compensation claims too easy to file.
Southwest (which includes checked bags with its fares), United, JetBlue and American do not offer any checked baggage delivery guarantees – which is unfortunate as bag fees rise. It would be nice to expect a performance standard at a cost that can now be as high as $45 for first checked bag.
Source: https://viewfromthewing.com/author/viewfromthewing/
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