After You've Lost Your Luggage
Check ALL the Baggage Belts
Bags do get put on the wrong belts. Also, connecting flight luggage sometimes arrives on earlier flights. It may be put aside nearby or kept in the oversize baggage area.
Keep Your Cool
The most adept airline counter attendant cannot make luggage reappear out of thin air. Describe what's lost in detail, make sure your hotel information is correct for them to deliver it, and go on. "Waiting to see if it's on the next flight from that city" is usually futile. It may also have been carried off by someone else thinking it was their bag - check for any solitary bags similar to your own. That person may have your bag.
Inform Your Hotel
They will usually be very helpful in keeping after the airline, and they may also have a supply of items on hand to help you get along until it arrives.
It's Greece (or almost anywhere) - They Sell Clothes
If you do have to buy all new items, try to skip the overpriced tourist shops. These can be fine if you're there strictly as a tourist, but if you're replacing businesswear, or, for that matter, underwear, it can be more difficult. Ask your innkeeper where there is a local clothing store where you can buy the essentials.
It's Really, Really Lost
Make a list of everything you remember in the bag.Contact your travel insurance company if you have one.
Repeatedly contact the airline. Find out the airline procedure for placing a lost luggage claim and follow it. Yes, write emails and make phone calls, but don't neglect the power of a written letter, especially if emails and phone calls are not answered within three days.
Check yourself with the baggage department at the airport where the bag was last in your hands - the crucial routing tag may have come off there.
Fill out any forms and get them to the airline promptly. Most of them have a "secondary search" plan in place for bags that are still missing after a few days. But often, this plan will not launch until the proper form is received - a problem when you're in the midst of a trip. But it may be the best chance for you to ever see your bag again.
