Malaysia Trip 2022/2023 Day 12: Kota Kinabalu (The Luggage Mystery Solved!)

We started the morning with some coffee at Flow Coffee. This coffee shop is located in the lobby of a boutique hotel (Luma Hotel). The decor is really nice. I had the iced flat white while Aaron had their V60 coffee from Indonesia. The coffee was very good. We also tried their teh tarik brioche French toast. It was very tasty and the brioche bread was perfectly pillowy for this but I couldn’t really taste the teh tarik.

Next, we stopped by Imago for some shopping before the mall got busy since it’s the weekend. They even had a cart for babies/kids here. 

After that, we headed over to Gleneagle hospital for another doctor’s appointment (on a Saturday!). It was a long wait to see the doctor, so by the time we finished, it was lunch time so we grabbed some food at the Kopi Ping Cafe by the hospital. I had the fish ball mee hoon soup. It wasn’t super flavourful but it was exactly what I needed today.

After that, we chilled at the airbnb for a little bit before heading to an auntie’s house for a visit. Little baby had a lot of fun being the centre of attention and ate a lot of food prepared by the aunties.

After tucking baby into bed, we had some takeout food from Souled Out since not a lot of places were open nearby by this time. We were highly disappointed by the food here. The satay were like jerky dry and the nasi lemak was mediocre. We were later told this this place is more known for it’s live music and ambiance than its food or drinks. 

Wondering what happened with our luggages? 

Baggage status: 3/3 in Incheon – CONFIRMED!!

One more family member was joining us and his flight got re-routed through Tokyo to Incheon due to certain covid restrictions in Japan. It was stressful to be denied boarding at the gate but luckily, Aeroplan was able to get another flight through Incheon without extra charge after spending some time on the phone with them. So while our family member was the Incheon Airport, he checked for the lost baggages and all 3 were there! We had received an email from Swissport International saying that 1 of the 3 luggages were there and they had asked where to deliver it in Korea. We had replied saying we were already in KK and to send the bag there. The other bags were not far away and all 3 were within 10ft of the Swissport service counter. We were less than impressed by how little effort it appears they put into locating our bags. It’s apparently been sitting there for a week now. When asked what their plan was, they said they would have just let it sit for another month or so and then send it back to Canada. They said they have thousands of bags to deal with so, cannot send it to KK for us. Since our family member was flying directly to KK from Incheon, we asked if it can just go on the flight with him. They said it’s unlikely since a small airline like Jejuair would not want to carry another airline’s luggage. They suggested that the he carry the luggages out of the customs and check them in himself to Jejuair and get reimbursed for the excess baggage fees on a later date from Air Canada! We were not about to fall into this trap. Once the bags are out of customs, if Jejuair doesn’t take our bags, then we will have no recourse. We were also not going to risk $1000 USD upfront as it is unlikely Air Canada will reimburse us based on past experience. After an hour of back and forth with Swissport, they finally said they will TRY to put it on his flight but there are no guarantees. We had pretty low expectations by now that it will get on the flight at all. We were all ready to accept that we will never see these luggages again. It was a very disheartening experience. When our family member checked at the check in counter, they said we needed to check at the gate. At the gate, after some showing some proof of loss luggage etc, they actually agreed to take the luggages onto the plane! We still didn’t believe it, but it’s true, we are finally reunited with our bags after 12 days! It’s a miracle! Still super disappointed with the Swissport service and I need to seriously reconsider just travelling with carry-on only in the future given this lost baggage fiasco.