PoleVaultPower.com

This was bound to happen at some point i suppose.

I just got my poles back from regionals in missouri and went to practice on them today. When i opened the bag i discovered that they had seemingly all been run over by a forklift or something like that becuase all the ends of the poles had been crushed. To make it even better the airline found some crazy a** loop hole that said they werent responsible, even though the bag was insured for 4000$ I ended up ordering new poles from UCS and they should be waiting for me in Sacramento so it ended up alright i guess.

Continental airlines was responsible for this. Just a FYI for anyone flying with poles...

Wow, I'm so sorry...

Biggie1110 wrote:This was bound to happen at some point i suppose.

I just got my poles back from regionals in missouri and went to practice on them today. When i opened the bag i discovered that they had seemingly all been run over by a forklift or something like that becuase all the ends of the poles had been crushed. To make it even better the airline found some crazy a** loop hole that said they werent responsible, even though the bag was insured for 4000$ I ended up ordering new poles from UCS and they should be waiting for me in Sacramento so it ended up alright i guess.

Continental airlines was responsible for this. Just a FYI for anyone flying with poles...

talk to your school attorney. if that bag was insured, they are liable.

Just this last december I was on my way home from a camp with Pat Manson, we had the poles strapped to the top of our car and we were driving through a huge storm. The wind was blowing so hard it snapped the back strap, allowing the poles to swing length-ways out from the vehicle, where they immediately struck a reflector pole. It snapped six of the seven in half. That was the most expensive trip I've ever went on lol

Wow…I am sorry for your loss.

VTechVaulter wrote:talk to your school attorney. if that bag was insured, they are liable.

Continental Airlines has a policy that says they are not liable for any damage to poles. They also say you cannot buy extra insurance. So I would guess the only thing that you might get out of them is a refund of the cost of any extra insurance they shouldn't have sold you in the first place.

Here is a link to their policy page on poles.
http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/travel/baggage/sports.aspx
Search on that page for "pole vaults", or just scroll down. The headings are listed in alphabetical order.

- master

That really sucks, sorry to hear the stupid airlines destroyed a few thousand dollars of equiptment. When we travel we don't even bother fighting with the airlines to even take our poles in the first place, we just have to have them shipped wherever we are going. The vaulters on our team even got screwed out of going to some meets because they wouldn't get our poles there

As I think further about it, a good lawyer might be able to argue that the airline's representative gave you erroneous information by allowing you to buy insurance which made you think it was covered. You might be able to argue you wouldn't have shipped your poles on the airline if you knew the terms the airline imposes. Just a thought.

- master

master wrote:As I think further about it, a good lawyer might be able to argue that the airline's representative gave you erroneous information by allowing you to buy insurance which made you think it was covered. You might be able to argue you wouldn't have shipped your poles on the airline if you knew the terms the airline imposes. Just a thought.

- master

bingo..

There was a con man several years ago who found track meets, posed as a vaulter, and shipped a broken set of poles to each destination. He took out maximum insurance and collected it at each end of his trip. Continental may have gotten wise to this.

now those are the type of people we dont need in this world. i cant believe some people...

newPVer wrote:now those are the type of people we dont need in this world. i cant believe some people...

You're just mad that you didn't think of it first!!