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I flight to Italy last Friday and my (Primicia/Branded) luggage was damaged, it costs around 180EUR (R$600). So I walked immediately to Vueling desk and opened a complain, they give me a report and asked to insert the complain on company website so I did it also immediately (filled the following form: https://apps.europ.es/geqnet_vlg/capturaPir.aspx)

After that the Vueling website redirected me to a luggage store where they will see if my luggage would be fixed or replaced, when I arrived there the girl from store told me that as Vueling is a low-cost the only thing she could do is replace for another luggage up to 50EUR which doesn't make any sense to us.

So my question is: someone already been in this kind of situation and had success calling the air company? Is that true that air company can crash my luggage and refund only a small percentage of it and I have no rights?

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EDIT: Added the website of form filled on Vueling website.

EDIT2:

I have to continue my trip, and my luggage have no conditions to proceed. If I take the 50EUR replacement I lose my rights to complain after that or should I take the solution as temporary and then complain after arrive home? I'm coming back to Brazil on next Wednesday so I should do something about that.

EDIT3 The website of store pointed by Vueling to solve the problem in Rome, Italy: https://www.valigeriavarese.it

Max Ferreira
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1 Answers1

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What? 50 EUR? And what about their Conditions of carriage which state:

VUELING shall be liable in cases of destruction, loss, delay or damage to luggage, up to a sum of 1,131 Special Drawing Rights per passenger.

1131 SDR is 1429.23 EUR right now. And this is not something Vueling came up with, this is Article 22(2) of the Montreal Convention. Every airline will have the exact same condition for this AFAIK.

So either they need to repair it to original condition which looking at this will be quite hard or if you can prove via original receipt or just a website link they should compensate you and this very quote is what you should point to. They can not limit the damage to 50 EUR. They believe (rightly so) that most people won't fight too hard. Important: if you have signed something already it is possible you waived your rights already, however. It's classic dirty trick, right at the airport as you file, they offer you a token amount of cash or even a voucher and if you sign for it, bam! case closed. Many will accept and will not even realize they waived their right to further complaints. Who wants to read fine print at the end of a tiring flight with the added frustration of a damaged bag??