UA-NYC

I'm hoping to do that myself for my HKG-NYC return in Nov. Same nonstop to 1 stop situation. Of course there's no business travel on the Sunday after Thanksgiving going into the work week

craz

I couldnt take CO changing my Transcon return again and again as they keep CXing 12/25 flights , so yesterday I decided and asked that they now allow me a 12/26 return, and they did and 1 better they changed my 12/18 Outbound to later flights to make my car rental a more smooth 1 = not needing to add an extra day to the rental this was after 4 major changes on both my Out & Inbound flights. the fare was $300 more then what i paid and I didnt have to pay anything more then I did

btw they did say I could geta refund but I need the flights to cross over 1K again and used a eCert so a refund wasnt in the cards

1KPath

Agree!...If you are spending 6K+ for a ticket, you don't need to put up with the "new" UA's games...CX will provide a better flight with much better customer service and less stress!!

cheltzel

And taking revenue away from UA is the only way to get UA to change its policies.

Dualmonitors

Thanks all for your advice, comments.

I called. Got a higher level supervisor, or whoever she actually is, who the heck knows.

the options are very few:

1) cancel the flights (roundtrip, so 2 flights) and have the $6,600 as a credit in my United Airlines "account" for future flights. Or,

2) pay $1,322 more, and get 11/24th, i.e. Saturday after Thanksgiving, one day later than my original flight, and get the same flight, same BusinessFirst class.

obviously, neither options is pleasant. she merely offered to waive the $400 "change fee" for me, bfd!

however, the net/net is still the two options above. i couldn't get her to do anything more. i was calm. i asked for her to inquire with her superiors and she said that she is supervisor manager of this or that, who knows.

i took option 2 above, i.e. paid $1,322 more for a one-day delay in my original flight! what a royal pain.

now, advice from y'all please:

was i dumb to have shelled out $1,322 more to do this?

my theory is this: if i went Cathay round trip, i'll still have to "deal with" United at a later date, with a $6,600 credit sitting there! i do fly once a year roundtrip there, but still, i'd need to deal with United roughly 1 year later.

i wasn't getting any money back from United. They refused to credit me, so the $6,600 credit would literally sit there till i use it. If United gets even worse with time, then a year later, i'd have to deal with that too!

as it stands now with me working with Option 2, yes, i lost $1,322, but i'm done with United, unless Cathay doesn't have seats in the future or something similar, and i'm forced to, once again, fly United with no other viable option.

how silly was i to have done Option 2 please?

kindly educate me. i'm a total newbie in these types of things.

thx in advance!!

UA-NYC

You should NOT have shelled out any more $ to change your flight to a n/s day. I would have held out against that.

Not clear if you have any UA status though, that may have helped if you did.

Dualmonitors

may i ask for a clarification/restatement of what you wrote please? i don't follow.

are you saying that IF i had a high status in the UA Mileage Program, then it would have helped? the way it was written in the green highlighted sentence, it sounded like if i were NOT in a higher status of the UA Mileage Program, it would actually have helped -- which is counter intuitive to me.

so: i'm not in any higher status category of UA's Mileage Program. what does that ultimately mean though? i'm not special, just an ordinary UA Mileage Program person, who had my Continental account transferred into the UA Mileage Program.

of course, i realize that i should not have to shell out another $1,322 for them to move me to a different date! nonetheless, this is the situation, and they are claiming that they are unwilling to give me a refund (claiming that it is a non-refundable ticket), and, i don't think it is such a great idea to have $6,600 sitting there in a UA account as a credit for many months.

it is not that i must use my $6,600 right away, but i don't see why i would want to shell out $7,500 for a Cathay roundtrip direct flight, AND have a $6,600 credit just sitting there at an airline that had grossly mistreated me.

any further comments, please? i really would like to learn from this experience.

i also am concerned that if i don't deal with this situation asap, that the seats are only going to get tighter and tighter as we get closer to November.

the other thing is this: what if UA decides to cancel THIS new flight of mine -- a flight that i paid an extra $1,322 for?? then it would be a disaster, right?

i have no idea what to do or how to go about thinking this through.

UA-NYC

Sorry for the confusion, edited my post - lack of sleep due to my latest UA MX issue last night

A major change in airplane gauge/routing, etc. IMO, is most definitely cause to cancel a ticket. I would have threatened to cancel, and then "settled" for having my return changed to a day later on the nonstop.

Dualmonitors

I see what you have just wrote here (quote above), but canceling is not something that she (the supervisor) considered a "threat"!

she couldn't care one bit!

she simply said: you may cancel and then have a UA credit in your UA account. that's it.

you wrote that you would have threatened to cancel, then "settled" for a one day later nonstop flight. the problem with that strategy is that you consider canceling to be a "threat" to UA, but they do not! they do not feel that they would need to settle anything.

do you see my point? i could be on the phone even longer but to no avail. i kept reminding her that i did not change anything at all -- it was UA who changed it on me and the entire nature of the flight has been changed from 16 hours (EWR-HKG) to over 22 hours (EWR-Narita, Narita-HKG). She didn't care. She said that with so many days still ahead of us, their obligation was to switch me to a flight ON THE SAME DAY. that's all. the fact that the flight required more hours of my time, an inconvenient and tiring stopover at Narita, despite me specifically booking for a direct/nonstop flight, was of no interest to her.

with this additional background clarification, does this help you see what position they've put me at? the question remains: what could i have done besides paying the $1,322 more and going one day later, and not dealing with UA anymore? She didn't seem to care either that i won't deal with UA anymore -- these sound like empty "threats", i'm sure, to her.

mind you, i was not yelling whatsoever. au contraire, i was calm and collected. didn't help.

andrewwm

The thing to do would be to hang up on the agent when they won't do what you want and call back again. You're hardly asking for the moon when they make these schedule changes and a sympathetic agent will help you.

Sometimes you win the UA phone lottery, sometimes you lose. Sucks, but that's how it goes these days.

sunil

The kind of crap this company is pulling is shocking. It's reaching a point where I'm no longer interested in any kind of loyalty with them. I need to find another carrier.

Cattle Car Commando

My 25 DEC EWY-TPA-EWR-HKG revenue flight was screwed up because of the cancelled EWR-HKG segment. They were trying to stick me with close to a 17 hour layover in EWR finally arriving in HKG a day late, long after my Thai Airways flight to BKK would've left.

Called up and after putting me on hold they were able to book me on 25DEC going out of MIA instead. MIA-IAH-SFO-HKG to be exact.

Other than having to get from my home in EYW to MIA I'm set though I may move my flight back a bit to get what I want, I can handle a few days slumming in Wan Chai.

CCC

Vulcan

Prices around Christmas have now gone pear-shaped.
10 days ago I booked the 9PM EWR-TPA 12/27 for my wife L fare of $150. It was the last L ticket. I waited and the next day the lowest was a T fare at $190. I hesitated again and 2 days ago the lowest became a V at $300+! Today the lowest is a W at @ $260. Yet the plane shows still pretty empty with 108 unassigned seats.
I will hold out a bit longer and hope they will open up a few T seats.

desperationsearch

I'm not sure if you already agreeing to an option changes what I recommend, but someone is steering you wrong here.

If you bought a revenue (cash/credit card) ticket on an airline and they breeched their contract by no longer offering that flight or a similar one that is +/- a few hours of your departure / arrival time then you get a refund, not a credit.

If the idiots at this airline won't process it then just dispute it with your credit card and provide the detail of what you booked and that the airline no longer offers it. Slam-dunk. An American Express card would process the refund faster than a bank card because Amex will credit immediately then ask for documentation and bank cards usually ask for the written dispute first, but either way you in no way have to settle for just a credit.

Dualmonitors

thanks for all the various pieces of advice here. much appreciated. newbie here in terms of the finer art of mileage and airlines. i just usually buy a ticket and fly.

so i had paid months ago via Visa card the bulk of the ticket, i.e. the $6,600. then, several days ago, because of their cancellation email on the outbound flight (EWR-HKG), i called to my disappointment and got those 2 options i had outlined above:

- get a credit balance on my United "account" and go fly Cathay, or,

- pay $1,322 more and get pushed one day out (next day) and fly on my same original flight (just one day later). Return HKG-EWR remains unchanged.

at that point in time, i had no intentions of keeping a $6,600 credit balance with this rinky dink airlines and having to use it later, so i opted for the $1,322 extra payment (MADE ON AmEx because i was so angry with United that i don't want any more United mileage points!!) . I did that and got my original flight but one day later. Not perfect at all, but i don't need to fly 22 1/2 hours (EWR-Narita-HKG) and can fly 16 hours (EWR-HKG) as i always do, but i'm out an extra $1,322.

i waited one day, read your comments, and decided to call back United.

i've always been polite, don't yell, etc. this time, i got a supervisor in India! She listened, and then she said she'd refund me the $1,322, and i have the same 1-day later flight direct/non stop EWR-HKG. She said the credit back to my credit card will take around 14 days due to whatever reason. i have a little doubt that maybe this credit won't appear, but i did get a confirmation email with the NEW price (which was the ORIGINAL price i had paid) for the roundtrip flight. i.e. the $1,322 extra is no longer visible on this new confirmation email.

i suppose i'm "safe" in that they will refund me the $1,322 as she promised, right? oh, btw, the flight class changed. both are BusinessFirst, but the letter indicating the flight class changed. my seat selection remains unchanged.

did i do anything wrong? did i goof? what other way could i have done this better?

thx in advance for educating me.