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By Julian, author of Devil’s Advocate…
When I’m getting off a flight, I’m fanatical about collecting my carry on stuff. I double and triple check around and under my seat, in the seat pockets, everywhere, to make sure I have all the items I came on board with before I deplane.
And yet somehow I occasionally leave an item behind. I don’t know what it is about airline seats, but all those nooks and crannies manage to pilfer at least one of my possessions from time to time. Fortunately it’s usually something cheap and not worth retrieving, like an old pair of headphones or a DVD copy of “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.”
But on a recent flight from New York to Los Angeles, I managed to lose my iPad Air. It was late and at the end of a long day of cancelled flights and missed connections, so I didn’t even know it was missing until I opened my backpack at the hotel. I eventually realized I had left it on the plane. I had been sitting in one of American’s A321T lie flat business class seats, so the seat itself had been folded in and out during the flight, likely obscuring the iPad somewhere underneath.
Needless to say, losing an iPad wasn’t the same as losing some 1980’s movie. It was expensive and I really wanted it back. But I figured it was highly unlikely I’d ever see it again. Still, I halfheartedly called American, fully expecting to be told that my iPad was gone to that great laundry sock heaven in the sky.
A voicemail was the only thing that answered at American’s Lost and Found Department. But to my surprise, it didn’t matter, because the voicemail informed me that American – like all the legacy carriers as it turns out – has entirely automated their Lost and Found process so that everything happens online.
And to my complete shock, it’s actually pretty good.
Online Lost and Found at American.
If you’ve left an item on an American Airlines flight, an American gate, or an Admirals Club, you’ll want to head to this link…
AA Lost and Found
https://www.chargerback.com/reportlostitemcbembed-aa.asp?customerid=6392
You might be surprised to note that link doesn’t have aa.com in it. That’s because American has farmed out their Lost and Found to Chargerback, a company that specializes in handling lost and found services. American isn’t the only airline using Chargerback, which you’ll see in a moment.
Once at the Lost and Found page, you’ll enter the specifics of your item using the drop down menus.
They cover pretty much any item you can think of, but of course there’s an “Other” category if you lost something unusual. The drop down menus change depending on what you’ve selected so far, so when I chose “Electronics” as the type of item lost, I could then enter more specifics about exactly what kind of device was missing.
And once I picked “iPad” a specialized window appeared asking for details about my particular iPad. If you know the serial number, you can enter it here, but it’s not required. You can even tell them what kind of screen saver you have installed.
This window changes depending on what item you selected. I tried testing a few different items just to see the windows. My personal favorite was the window I got when I chose “Cash” as my lost item…
Once you’ve described your item, you enter the rest of the details, including the date you lost it, the city you last saw it, and so on. You’ll also include your contact info here, which is important because Chargerback will text and/or e-mail you with updates as the search goes on.
I submitted my lost and found report and within a few minutes I had both an e-mail confirmation and a text message confirming my report had been received.
Finding your item and shipping it home.
I still didn’t have a lot of hope that my iPad would be found, but I did feel a little better knowing that at least I had submitted a report. Doing it online helped because it felt documented and not as if I had just told some sleepy guy at the baggage office who promised to keep an eye out for it just to get rid of me.
But lo and behold, just two days later, a miracle e-mail arrived!
As you can see, from here I had the option to either pick up the iPad myself, have it shipped back to me, or have American toss it (not likely!). By clicking the “Hold For Pickup” button, I learned the iPad was at LAX, and since I had already flown onward and wasn’t planning to go back through Los Angeles, I instead requested American to ship the iPad back to me in New York.
Now, as wonderful as American was to find my iPad, I (correctly) didn’t expect they’d ship it back to me at their own cost. But the process of having the iPad shipped was incredibly easy. When I clicked the “Return To Me” button, Chargerback already had a FedEx shipping cost of $35.81 ready for me. All I had to do was confirm my address and provide a credit card.
Once that was all done, I immediately received an e-mail receipt, and a few hours later, tracking info on the FedEx package…
Shipping is done by 2-Day FedEx, so I made the shipping request on Thursday and was thrilled when this arrived on Monday!
Delta, United, and Southwest have similar systems.
I can only speak from experience about American’s system, but other airlines offer online automated retrieval of lost and found items as well. United’s reporting system is at this link…
United Lost and Found
https://www.chargerback.com/ReportLostItemCBEmbedbu.asp?customerid=2474
Notice anything about that United link? It also uses Chargerback, so the process is the same with similar questions.
In fact Chargerback handles lost and found for several different airlines, including American, United, Sun Country, Allegiant, and TAP, as well as hundreds of hotels and even amusement parks such as Six Flags.
On the other hand, Delta uses a different third-party system run by NetTracer, which also services multiple airlines. You can report your lost and found item here…
Delta Lost and Found
https://live.lostandfound.aero/client/delta/landing.do
As you can see, the Delta system asks similar questions as American, so I’m guessing it works roughly the same way.
Southwest uses the NetTracer system as well. File lost and found reports for Southwest here…
Southwest Lost and Found
https://live.lostandfound.aero/client/southwest/lostform.do
Obviously there’s no guarantee with any of these services that you’ll be able to retrieve your lost item. But hopefully these links will help the next time you accidentally leave something on the plane. And if anyone finds a Blu-Ray of the “Bill and Ted” sequel, I seem to be missing one of my copies…
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Thanks, this was helpful! My husband left his Bose headphones on an AA flight a few months back and no luck wit the search. never saw them again I left a kindle on the flight to PHL yesterday so fingers crossed they aren’t as desirable on the resale market and I get a call. I suspect different airports have different find rates and would be interested in hearing about that somewhere. Going to put a “deplaning” checklist on my phone, which is never out of my hand once we land lol . Did you try “locate my iPad” when you realized it was gone?
I left my wallet on a United Express Flight that landed in Denver and then flew to Casper WY. Realized the problem at the parking lot and flight was already gone. Called United and talked to a sympathetic, but useless person. Filed the claim with United/Chargerback on Friday morning. Friday afternoon got a call from baggage handler in Casper who found the wallet. we worked out a plan for him to personally send it to me. I updated the claim with his phone # name and location. On SUNDAY i received a text from Chargerback stating they were diligently working on my claim and had not found the wallet to date. I gave them the exact location and all details 2 days prior! I received my wallet thanks to a conscientious baggage handler. NO THANKS to Chargerback – they are a waste of time!
Well CHargeback wouldn’t have had located your wallet since the baggage handler had it. But I am sure that if they did have it, they would have found it, emailed you updates and shipped it back to you.
So my daughter left her iPad mini on an American Airline flight in August. We filled in a lost and found form online. By the end of September we received an email to say the iPad had not been found and the case was closed. Then in January my daughter found an email in her junk mail from American to say her iPad had been found. Unfortunately she came accross the email after the 30day period and has now been told the item
Is no longer in their possession. Because she was told the case was closed she didn’t expect them to email her a month after to say they’ve found it and the email went into her junk folder. Is there anyway I can retrieve the item or make a claim for it?
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I recently lost my ipad mini on a United flight from Frankfurt to Washington Dulles. I left the plane not knowing I had dropped my ipad on the side of my seat. It wasn’t until I got home did I realize I had lost it. I filled out the lost & found form with hopes that they would find it. A week had gone by…then two weeks and I started to assume that my ipad was gone for good. About two and a half weeks later, I get an email from Chargerback stating that they had found my ipad! I was ecstatic and immediately paid the $15 for them to ship it to me from Dulles airport to my home in LA. Lesson learned: If you lose anything, don’t hesitate to fill out the airline’s lost and found form. I’m sure these airlines have bins of unclaimed lost & found items. Great article Julian. Cheers! Safe travels!
Literally left a Nexus 7 on a Southwest flight a couple of weeks ago and went through this exact same process. I was expecting absolutely nothing in the way of support and was pleasantly surprised not only by the great system in place but also when it was found and returned to me.
Thanks for making more people aware of the services available to them.
Great information, Julian! Thanks.
+1 @Theresa
Very helpful information. Thank you.
You’re surprised a system NOT built by a carrier is actually good? Them.not writing the software immediately puts them.above most any carrier. Add in it was probably written in the last decade…guaranteed to be better then their archaic systems