FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Missed Connection Expectations
View Single Post
Old Feb 25, 2012, 2:38 am
  #1  
rokap
 
Join Date: Feb 2012
Posts: 2
Missed Connection Expectations

My wife and I were scheduled to fly from Newark to Buenos Aires (BA). From Newark we flew to Dulles where we were scheduled to connect with the flight to BA. The flight from Newark to Dulles on Continental Connection arrived late due to problems the ground crew had getting luggage loaded. The BA flight was notified we were late and asked to hold the flight a few minutes. We arrived at the gate at 10:07PM, the scheduled departure time for the flight. The doors closed just as we were approching the waiting area for the flight.

We begged, pleaded, groveled, offered bribes but no luck. We asked the staff if they had been advised that we were on our way and they said yes, but could not hold the flight.

My wife and I both have elite status; Mine is platinum her's silver. We expected that we would receive resonable accommodations and compensation equivalent to an involuntary bumping on an overbooked flight delayed for more then 4 hours. Actual delay was 24 hours since there is only one flight per day from Dulles to BA.

Actual compensation was a room in a Sheraton, without our luggage, and vouchers worth $18 each for meal tickets to cover meals for 24 hours. Breakfast itself at the Sheraton is $18. What were they thinking?

At the airport customer service desk they could not confirm the flight the next day, claimed it was overbooked, but did get us a reservation. They advised us to go online at the hotel to try to book seats. At the hotel it turns out the voucher did not cover internet access in the room. Ca-chink another $12 dollars, only to determine we couldn't assign seats at continental.com or United.com. We arrived at the hotel about 11pm. Our meal vouchers were not very useful since the restaurant and bar in the hotel were already closed. Closest open restaurant was a taxi ride away. We hadn't had dinner yet since we were scheduled to be served meals on the
international flight.

So called the elite 800 number. After explaining the situation to the nice lady that took my call she offered compensation. Did not describe it but said it would arrive in an email within 35 minutes. Then said should coudn't get us seats but would transfer me to the "desk" that could. On hold for 40 minutes. Next agent was able to confirm seats for us and even managed to get us an exit row. Since I had used miles/money to upgrade to Business on the missd flight I asked if the upgrade request was automatically transferred to the flight we were now on. It wasn't but she placed us on the list.

When we did arrive at the airport the next day we checked the status of our upgrade request with an agent in the lounge. She couldn't find the request in our reservation. But she was persistent. She did see miles were taken from our account. The upgrade request was for a flight a March 23rd - a flight we were not booked on. She did manage to correct the issue and clear the upgrade. So we finally made it to BA.


The email with a compensation offer did arrive, only to me. My wife still has not received one. Compensation offered is 7,000 bonus miles (not EQM eligible) or $150 credit on a future flight. Keep in mind that compensation for an involuntary bumping causing a delay of 4 hours get $800 compensation per person.


Question - Are we being unrealistic in thinking there should have been (or should still be) some additional compensation? Should UA have provided us a complimentary upgrade for all of the inconvenience?

I also have lifetime gold status on AA. Our last several flights on AA have been much better experiences than previous years. Makes me second guess my decision to steer our business to Continental for the last few years.
rokap is offline