Originally Posted by
Jorgen
Sounds like you got a lousy agent. While their rerouting you sans-LHR might have been within the absolute fine print on the contract of carriage it sounds pretty darn unreasonable given the existence of several perfectly reasonable *A carriers who can get you from VIE to LHR with or without stops.
But did you try phoning up again to see if you could get a more reasonable agent?
The real problem in this whole dealio, as far as I'm concerned, is United's habit of changing itineraries without even bothering to send out an email about it. Seriously, United, you can email me sixteen pieces of advertising per week but can't be bothered to mention "oh btw we cancelled your flight and you're now flying on the redeye via Adis Ababa"?
Mind you I've had an uphill battle arguing that last point on here before; apparently the average flyertalker checks their itineraries three times a day, just for fun. (Aw, who am I kidding? I do it too!)
You won't get an uphill battle from me. You're absolutely right that a big part of the problem is a lack of notification re the change. And as for having to recheck reservations regularly - that's good advice, but with almost any other service industry the obligation is on the company to make sure that the customer knows of any changes and to make things as right as possible if changes take place. That clearly wasn't the case in this instance.
Originally Posted by
Often1
Rule 1 - When you get an unreasonable CSR, politely thank them, hang up and redial.
That said, all you were owed was transportation IAD-VIE. So long as that's what you got, your contract has been fulfilled.
Your Rule 1 is absolutely right, though note that the OP escalated to a supervisor who was similarly unhelpful.
As for your second point, the contract technically might have been fulfilled but the customer service was atrocious. UA had it in its power to make this right. It couldn't be bothered to do so.