I admit, I find myself down the rabbit hole on TikTok and Instagram more often than I’d like. It’s like a vacuum sucking up the dog hair from the couch in our condo. Except, the dog hair is my free time and overall attention span. But thanks to my wife Tara sending me this travel hack from lawyer Erica Kullberg, I learned about Delta Airlines ‘Bags on Time’ Guarantee. And boy, I’m glad I did!
Bottom line, Delta promises to have your bags to the baggage carousel in 20 minutes after your plane lands, or they will give EACH SkyMiles account holder 2,500 miles. That’s their ‘Bags on Time’ Guarantee. I didn’t believe it at first. But it works because we just returned from Minnesota Sunday morning and followed the steps. It didn’t take 20 minutes for our bags to show up, it took over an hour. And when your plan lands at 1:00am in Orlando (1.5 hours from Tampa), minutes matter.
So yes, I was frustrated, but since my wife, my daughters and I have our own SkyMiles accounts, we netted 10,000 points. Took some of the sting out of getting back to Tampa at 3:00am!
How the ‘Bags on Time’ Guarantee Works
- Make sure you have a Delta SkyMiles account. If not, create one. They’re free.
- Once you land in your destination city, start a timer.
- See how long it takes for your bags to arrive at the carousel. Delta says if it’s more than 20 minutes, you’re entitled to 2500 SkyMiles points.
- Head to Delta’s Bags on Time web page, fill out your details and your points will be added instantly!
A couple important things to note:
- You only have 72 hours to make the submission (we missed the first leg because we were too late. But the bags took a long time to arrive on that trip as well. Would have been 20,000 miles!)
- Delta’s baggage tracking systems begin the count from the second the door opens until they are scanned onto the carousel. So while you may feel like the official timekeeper of the Olympics, Delta has its own way of confirming the time.
- The guarantee doesn’t apply for oversized or overweight bags or special items. These items may take longer by design.
- This is only for Delta. I believe it may work for Alaska Airlines, but we haven’t confirmed that yet. Perhaps a similar process.
Hope this hack was helpful. It’s always good to pay attention and rack up those extra miles!
Happy Travels. ✈️
