On the week before July 13, I had to choose between taking Southwest (with one stop in either PHX or LAS) from DEN to RNO, or taking UA/TED non-stop. Since it was scheduled for two or more extra hours with the layover, I selected UA/TED. Little did I know that it actually would have been faster to take Southwest with one stop.
I arrived at the airport and walked down to the gate for UA/TED 1467, the 5:53pm departure DEN-RNO on July 13. The airplane was there. I thought great, except that seems like a poor utilization of equipment. Southwest would never have an aircraft sitting at the gate for more than a hour. Well, first reason that UA keeps losing money, I thought, but this should be good for me, at least the equipment was there. I went off to get some dinner.
I came back about 15 minutes before boarding and now the sign shows the flight as "delayed." Oh, here we go again with United, I thought. The aircraft was there, but the pilots were not. Turns out the pilots were stuck at Dulles. Again, this escapes me. Why not keep the aircraft and the pilots together throughout the day, like Southwest does? The GA announces that they are "searching for pilots." Here we are at United's hub (DEN) and they don't have A-320 pilots? Sad state of affairs.
They search for almost 2 hours and finally cancel the flight. The GA can't do anything for you, you have to go to their customer service center. Everybody takes off in a run. We stand in line for 30-45 minutes. By this time, the last flight for SFO has left, which could have connected me to RNO.
The CSC agents don't know anything about the RNO cancellation and have to check with the supervisor to find out if they can give hotel vouchers, even though the GA has promised them. Finally they give a hotel voucher. I ask about UA/TED 1469, the 9:20pm departure to RNO. The reply: Oh, that is overbooked, you will never get on that.
I go down to UA/TED 1469's gate anyway. With the problems from Dulles, there are at least 14 misconnects, meaning 14 open seats on 1469. I get on that flight. Thanks to my efforts, I saved United the cost of a hotel night. Do they give me anything for my efforts? Nope!
I paid for an E+ upgrade on UA/TED 1467 and they can't give me that on 1469. At least they give me an aisle seat. But, its just one row behind E+, so I can look at and drool over the E+ seats without actually sitting in one. I wonder if I will get a refund for the E+ upgrade fee.
The 9:20pm flight doesn't get going on time either. Finally about 9:40pm we push away from the gate. I listen to channel 9, which is on, for the moment. We taxi out to runway 17L in DEN. The pilot turns off channel 9 as they taxi around to the holding pad while they work out some problem -- they never tell us what that problem is. They leave channel 9 off during the take-off (a part I really like to hear), then turn it on after they get into the air.
There is no listing of what music they have on what channel. I finally find my music by surfing around. No idea what songs will be played in what order. I watch a little bit of the in-flight video (re-runs of TV shows and advertising for NBC). We arrive in Reno at 11pm local time, 4 hours behind my originally scheduled arrival, 2 hours behind when I could have been there with Southwest. (I checked, Southwest flew on time that day).
The next day I called UA to ask for my E+ upgrade refund. Can't process a refund for 3 days until all the data comes through. I call again on Thursday. This time they do promise to process the refund ($29). It takes 7-10 days to get a refund. What gives? Southwest processes a refund in 2-3 days. OK, do the best you can. I ask for a different refund on a different matter where I was promised not to be charged a $25 telephone fee for an open jaw award ticket (something you can book on-line at
www.southwest.com). I was charged it anyway and the refund agent gave me the refund (still waiting to see it on my credit card).
So, in summary... UA can't get their pilots and equipment at the right place and right time. They can't be honest about their ability to correct their problems. They have poor communication about what remedies they will give when they can't fulfill their commitment to fly me from point A to point B. They don't know what misconnects they are going to have. The pilots won't keep channel 9 on to let us know what is going on. The refund process is a mess.
The GA told me that the Sunday and Friday flights from DEN to RNO and vice versa are always overbooked. Definately an opportunity for WN.