Zoe Walker seeks a few tips on what to do if your airline loses your holiday luggage.

THINK twice as you are packing your holiday suitcase this year - if you go to Ibiza and your Louis Vuitton luggage full of designer gear goes to the Bahamas you might end up with no more compensation than if you had lost a kit bag full of dirty washing.

This is because compensation claims for lost baggage are limited under the terms of the Warsaw Convention to £12.40 per kilogram of baggage lost. Which isn't going to cover costs if your misplaced belongings include valuables or expensive designer clothing. So if you don't want to run the risk of losing your hard-won possessions to the baggage carriers and being paid a pittance for the privilege, it's a good idea to make sure your insurance covers accidental baggage loss before you fly.

"Luggage can easily be lost in transit if the paper destination barcode the airline attaches comes off and the airline has no idea where the bag should be going or who it belongs to," says John Howe, partner in Pudsey-based law firm John Howe & Co.

So what if you and your matching suitcase set do part company?

Well, swift action will help to ease the burden of any loss, and as soon as you realise your baggage has gone astray, you should ask staff in the luggage collection area for a property irregularity report, which will be required if a claim goes ahead. "It's basically the same as if you were burgled at home and the police would give you a crime number - it's akin to that," says John of the report.

If you do need to make a financial claim there are two ways in which you can do so - firstly by claiming from the airline and secondly from the relevant insurance. So it's advisable to make a list of the contents of your suitcase as, for any claim, you'll need to have a good idea of what was in the case and how much it was worth.

"It is very important to make sure that the amount of cover in the travel policy, or the home insurance, is sufficient to make proper retribution for the lost goods," says John, adding: "Many people these days also travel with expensive musical equipment, jewellery or laptop computers and the cost of replacing these would be significant. It is vitally important therefore to ensure that the travel policy has adequate cover for the items that will be carried or that the home insurance covers valuable items outside the home." John recommends that travellers consider their options in advance of their holiday and read the small print on their home contents insurance before they leave for foreign shores. "Insurance companies will usually only pay out up to a certain value," says John. "And there's usually an aggregate value and a value per item as well.

"But I would think it's better to have travel insurance as long as it's the right policy and is going to cover any loss.

"If you get travel insurance from an insurance company then you often pay for a policy for a year," says John. "And you will often pay for the year what you pay at the travel agent's for two weeks."

So it seems that taking the time to phone around for your insurance and not simply accepting the policy you are offered by the travel agent could pay off in the long run.

"With the International Air Transport Association estimating that six in every thousand bags are mis-directed in transit that is an awful lot of lost suitcases so the chances of it happening are too high not to be fully protected from financial loss," says John.

But if you do ending up losing your baggage it seems that unfortunately there's very little that can be done on the spot to rectify the situation. It's not going to be a case of your insurance company simply sending a spare set of clothes to your hotel by courier as you might hope - and the time frame within which airlines classify baggage as officially lost varies from company to company - for example British Airways work on 45 days whilst EasyJet and Go will give up on your bags after only five days. All of which basically means that you will not receive any compensation for your lost chattels in advance of these times.

"There are lots of things you can do after the event," says John. "But if people have a credit card then they can at least buy new clothes."

If you don't, then it seems your only hope is to beg or borrow some temporary threads.

Updated: 10:40 Thursday, June 05, 2003