litesleeper

You can add me to the list of victims. Until I came across this thread I thought I was the only one. I had a trip to the Philippines that included Air China on the return. I received that same Chinese email confirming my cancellation, which of course I didn't do. I called UA right away, but they weren't able to do anything for me. the agent was very kind, and she looked for different options, but said no availability for reward travel anymore. She added that the cancellation came via the website, from the same place I booked the trip (my office). I paid the $200 to recredit the miles. I have asked United to waive the $200 but I'm not optimistic. I know I'm completely not understanding of human behavior, but why do some people have to mess with others' accounts? I just don't get it. sigh.

tom911

Welcome to FlyerTalk When did you discover your itinerary was tampered with (or get the e-mail)?

DaviddesJ

Does your office employ any Chinese hackers?

cfischer

You shouldn't have paid the $200 and rather asked them to re-instate the ticket. Don't accept anything like this; make sure if they do this involuntarily that they note in the record. Small claims court might be your best avenue if corporate customer care doesn't take care of the situation.

DaviddesJ

Yes and no. Obviously it's not worth his time to go to court over $200. UA knows this, it's not much of a threat, either. If necessary, complaining to regulators is more likely to accomplish something useful.

cfischer

$200 on top of thousands of dollars to purchase a paid ticket to replace the award ticket? That's absolutely worth it! If the ticket doesn't touch US soil the DOT won't do anything, so many tickets won't qualify

lewende

Many tickets actually qualify because they all have a CA TPAC segment ending in or starting from the US.

IAHUArunner

Call UA again, ask them to make your reservation non cancellable. Direct them to this thread (they are aware) and express your concern. They can come up (hopefully) with some kind of block..

CLEContinental

At this point, calling out United on Twitter/Facebook is probably in order in the hopes that the media picks up on this major IT/security issue. Sadly, unless a company gets publicly shamed in front of millions of people, they just don't want to help. Sad, but that's exactly the case with this airline that is currently swirling around the toilet bowl.

mgcsinc

I think an email to Jeff with a link to this thread might be in order.

DaviddesJ

I think your chance of winning such a remedy in small-claims court is low. Buying a replacement ticket in hopes of winning a lawsuit months later would be pretty speculative. If you were so committed to going that you were willing to pay out of pocket either way, then after doing that filing a lawsuit could make more sense. But then you might end up over the filing limits for small-claims, anyway.

ordbkk

I didn't mention the Visa issue specifically, but I did ask for alternate flights, because leaving earlier meant we'd be taking an additional day vacation from work. The rep searched but could not find any other flights with award space (and I find the same problem when I search). There is no award space for 10 days before or after our intended departure.

We have since explained the United snafu to our employers and worked out the extra day off, and that's when I sat down to examine the impact to our itinerary and noticed we'd need to extend our hotel reservation and run afoul of the TWOV limit.

This has been a very frustrating aspect of the whole thing: United has been unwilling to restore our reservation if it could not be done as a saver award. There are revenue seats on our original flights, and other flights that we find satisfactory, but we were told the single United flight is our only choice despite how much it conflicts with our plans.

ordbkk

I don't have much of an audience on FB or Twitter.. Where are the heavy hitters with lots of Twitter followers? Like @WanderngAramean or @TheMrPickles ? Can we get a mention on @FlyerTalk ?

DaviddesJ

It's pretty surprising to me. I can understand that UA might not be able to get CA to give them seats, but they should do more to accommodate you on UA metal where there are empty seats. I agree with trying to make a fuss on social media; also, I would consider trying to get a story in the press. Seems like there could be a major news story on this, if it's a trend and not just a one-off. I don't personally know the reporters who cover travel for the major papers, but surely someone at FT does? It's not impossible that you could get somewhere just by calling the NY Times and asking to speak to their reporter who covers the airline industry.

How far off is your trip? A few days? A few weeks?

ordbkk

I have a few weeks, luckily and this didn't happen closer to departure. But F/C space is already limited, and the longer they take to respond, the fewer options we have.