On the return flight back from Milwaukee last weekend, a pedal from my bike was lost. Both pedals were packed in the bike case before leaving. My bike case was late arriving and had to be shipped to my house the next morning. Upon unpacking it, I found that my left pedal was missing. So after having to drive back to the airport the next day (yet another reason this airline sucks and has the worst customer service) to fill out a lost item form they told me they would look for the pedal (Shimano SPD-SL). This was last Tuesday. I call up today to check on the status of the search and find out about a settlement if it hasn’t been found.
Well… the pedal has not been found, shocker! But then after talking about settlement, they come back and tell me they are not responsible because my bike had a limited liability tag or some such nonsense since it was a bike (I was not aware of this). So basically, I had to pay $80 to check it and now they delivered it late and missing a pedal, and they have no liability? Please tell me this isn’t true! BTW, I flew on United and it was a bad experience, lost luggage both ways, delayed flights and a lost item. Do not fly with them!
So has anyone had a similar experience? Am I screwed or is there something I can do about this. The customer service rep I talked to gave me some info for their Chicago office, but nothing that would put me in direct contact with anyone.
I’m not rolling in the $$$, so to me $100 for new pedals is an expense I really want to avoid. Anybody got a left Shimano SPD-SL pedal they can TSR if I can’t get any type of settlement??
Well, hopefully they will treat you better than United. I am so pissed right now, my overall experience with United has been terrible and their customer service has been tremendously inadequate. Half of the time you call up ther 800 number and you either get a busy signal or told by a recording to call back later, it’s a total joke!
Did you sign something agreeing to a limited liability? It looks like according to their website that as long as you paid the $80 to transport a bicycle as checked baggage, you should be covered up to $2800. And those would be expensive pedals.
Choptank, I used to travel constantly as a pro bodyboarder and had all kinds of luggage issues happen, including the airline leaving my bag behind to save weight on a flight that had to divert around the Montserrat volcanic eruption (mid 90’s). Due to that, my boards didn’t make it to Australia in time for an event I was competing in there, causing me to have to ride unfamiliar equipment, and of course I lost in the first round…anyway, the long and short of it is, your best recourse is to write a well-composed business letter to customer service at United. Include details, get to the point, and try to leave emotion at a minimum. In other words, be “professional” but get to the point in the letter. Typically, they may offer vouchers for free air travel at the very least, that is if you want to actually USE them to fly that airline again.
My advice in the future, based on other threads, is to look into shipping your bike via Fedex or other common carrier instead of taking it on the plane.
Your situation sucks, and I’m sure you can just picture some careless TSA employee dropping your pedal and closing up your case, and then forgetting about it. Morons!
Check to see if it is covered by your renters or hom owners covers it. I would also ask them to suppky you with the piece of paper that show you the limited liability…I often use the approach that I they will have to staty on the phone till I am satisfied, other wise they are going to hang up…that usually works sometimes it takes an hour but you do the math $100/hr…
Your situation sucks, and I’m sure you can just picture some careless TSA employee dropping your pedal and closing up your case, and then forgetting about it. Morons!
Exactly!!!
Thanks for the suggestion. I will definitely write a letter, but unless some one can TSR a pedal, I’ll probably have to drop more money on getting new pedals, what a pain in the @$$/wallet!! My next race (Sprint Tri) is Aug. 14th , so I can wait too long, gotta get in couple rides before it.
Actually I started a thread while stuck in freakin’ Tulsa…I was kind of mad…but not as mad as the people that were flying to Paris, Fr. and were told that they would get in Atlanta the next day and unfortunately, they’d have to wait monday actually fly to Paris!!! on a 1 week trip to Europe, you lose 4 days, you’re happy!
Which specific model pedal? I have a couple sets of Shimano SPD pedals around, retail about the same $ you mentioned, I could probably ship a set to you (my older set, if that’s ok with you, they work great, rode on them yesterday).
They use Shimano’s special cleat, so they are different than some other SPD style pedals. If you have an extra set I would definitely be interested. I’m not against offering some $$ too, just trying to avoid having to shell out another $100. I really liked my previous set as they were way better than the Performance SPD pedals I started out with which broke.
