Diogenes1789

I think it is no longer smart to fly on UA at all if another carrier is available. Since the merger, you cannot trust that you will get the seat or ticket that was paid for. Computer errors are two words most used by UA reservations agents these days when explaining to passengers why UA is denying the service that was paid for. My very recent egregious examples: First, UA cancelled my brother-in-law’s paid-for reservation, for no apparent reason, without any notification. There had not been a change of aircraft. Lucky for him, he checked his reservation three days prior to departure and learned of the screw-up. He asked that his reservation be reinstated. Even though the reservations agent recognized that UA made a mistake, the agent insisted he still had to pay an extra $50 for the privilege of reinstating the cancelled reservation.

The second incident is far more serious. My 85 year old handicapped mother-in-law paid extra to secure an E+ aisle seat, to accommodate her very limited mobility. She advised UA she was handicapped when the reservation was made. For her return flight SFO-EWR, on attempting online check-in 17 hours pre-departure she learned that the UA has dumped her from E+ and put her in a middle seat in the back of the plane. I tried resolving this for two hours with a reservations agent and supervisor (located in India), but was told by the supervisor that the only person in the company that can resolve the seat assignment error was the gate agent, since the departure time was less than 24 hours away. I told the supervisor this was unacceptable, because my 85 year old mother-in law was not only physically handicapped, but would not have the mental capacity to deal with the gate agent in getting her seat re-assigned, and I could not accompany her through security to the gate. The reservations supervisor told me 3 times that he could not do anything further to help me. But each time when I politely insisted that he do something, he said he called someone, but was not successful in making any changes. The supervisor eventually said he made a call to “Chicago” for help, but was told by “Chicago”, that nothing could be done to change the seat assignment. He said he was told by Chicago that no one in all of UA could change the seat assignment at this point. I asked to speak to his supervisor, but the supervisor told me that his supervisor would not get on the phone, since he does not deal with passengers. The supervisor said he had greater authority in dealing with reservations than his boss. This looks like it will end up with my mother-in-law not being able to fly home tomorrow, and having to stay an extra day. I predict that UA will then insist on trying to charge her the $838 for a one-way ticket SFO-EWR and a cancellation charge for her unused return ticket, because UA breeched its contract of carriage.