keileym

My husband and I were recently stranded in the Machu Picchu disaster and were unable to leave for 5 days until we were eventually airlifted/rescued by helicopter. See news articles below, there are many many more, google it or see below.

When we were finally able to get out, we had missed our return flights home and when we called United to ask for help, we were told they didn't recognize the disaster and wouldn't help!! We booked on miles and were told they couldn't get us home for another month unless we bought new tickets! I sent an email on their site and even spoke to a supervisor.

Terrible.

We had to spend almost $4,000 getting new one ways tickets home.

http://www.kitv.com/news/22355767/detail.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aDQ7vbK2NBoI

JetAway

Trip insurance is for situations like this.

jhayes_1780

While some specific would be nice.....

I trust you were flying out of Rio or Sao Paulo?

FWIW, it is the high season for travel there, it is quite possible there was no award space available to convert your tickets.

jimmc66

Exactly right, JetAway.

I'm always stunned how many Americans travel without any form of insurance - I had a friend tell me once "if he has any problems, he'll just call the Embassy and they'll fix it".

vicarious_MR'er

I agree. It costs next to nothing, too

Ripper3785

Hire the guy who performed the song/video of "United breaks guitars" and maybe get some publicity?

mauiUAflyer

keileym, Welcome to FT!

Sorry to hear about your ordeal. Hopefully you got out in one piece!

Since UA doesn't fly to Peru, they wouldn't have any travel advisories for that area.

As others have mentioned, since you were on award tickets, and your missing your flight had nothing to do with anything in UA's control, it could very well be that the next flight with two award seats is in fact weeks out.

If I had to suddenly cough up cash for flights back, it would certainly pay to look at all options, and possibly find cheap round-trip tickets (the return legs could be tossed). I take it you purchased 1 way fares on UA, at ~$2k @? Were these in business class?

And I can see how others' recommendations of trip insurance could be a good idea for trips like this.

Flyingmama

What, exactly, were you expecting?

It is not United's fault you missed your flight. Nor it is United's fault the area was swamped by bad weather, causing you to miss your flight by five days, or whatever length of time it was.

Under circumstances such as this, most airlines will try to accomodate you on a space available basis, which I gather they offered to do - but at a later date. As jhayes pointed out, this is the high season for travel in that part of the world, and United most likely did not have seats immediately available for award travel.

The bottom line is that you did not use your original award seats for whatever reason, and you blame United for not bending over backwards to get you home?

Chalk this up to a learning experience, and next time buy trip insurance.

denverhockeyguy

you = bad planner

You entered a contract with UA for specific terms. You failed to meet those terms by showing up 5-days late. You're situation is unfortunate, but its not UA's problem. As others have said, trip insurance would have helped. The fact that you used miles gave you even less options; as UA wouldn't put you on another carrier. Most other carriers (America, Continental, etc.) would have treated you the same; especially on an award ticket.

sts603

Never bought trip insurance. Don't plan to. The concept behind insurance is that it provides peace of mind but on average is a losing proposition. My feeling is that the potential losses are worth spending on that rare occasion. I travel to the extent that I understand that at some point, I'm somehow going to get really screwed with something that's going to cost a lot of money to fix. I understand that and am willing to bet that over the course of a lifetime, I'll come out ahead by not insuring every aspect of my travel.

Going into an international trip without such an understanding, however, I agree is foolish.

docbert

I am continually amazed by people who travel to places like Peru without travel insurance. (and my "like Peru" I basically mean anywhere outside of your home country).

In this case having to pay an additional $4000 obviously hurts, but imagine what you could have been up for if you'd been injured by the flooding? Or even if you'd just tripped and fallen whilst climbing through Machu Picchu? Or had your luggage/cash/passports stolen or lost?

Presuming you didn't have any additional insurance, you might want to check your credit card travel insurance (if any) to see if that covers you here. Even if you paid on points, some cards will still cover you if you earnt some/all of those points from the card itself, and paid for the taxes on the same card.

manneca

Trip insurance is quite expensive IMO. It runs more than 15 per cent of the cost of the trip. I don't get insurance. I self insure. So far, I've saved enough to pay for a couple of trips.

YDJanet

That's a terrible situation, and I'm surprised that the airline showed so little compassion. At the very least, they could have put you on standby.

I'm sorry for all the flames thrown at you. You are already smarting from this ordeal, and at this point you don't need comments that could well make you feel worse.

The good thing is that in five years it probably won't matter so much.... but the $4000 expenditure could smart for a while!

I hope you enjoyed Macchu Piccu!

worldtrav

I think you should reconsider your thread title. UA is spending millions of their hard to find dollars on almost daily relief flights to Haiti, a country they don't even serve. Heartless? Hardly.

PTahCha

UA may have, but 1) like others said, flights are generally fully during this time of the year and 2) that's not the answer OP wants to hear.