Curious if anyone else was on the IAD -AUA flight 539 on 30 March that was canceled. If so, I'm interested what others' experience has been with certificates/other comp for this flight. I've overheard a couple of people complaining about what they got, so I asked. It seems there is a lot of variability in what was offered to people. It doesn't seem to be entirely status driven variability either. 1k desk helped me out and promised somewhat reasonable compensation at the time, but am now learning that others didn't get same offer. Non elites got varying offers (and service). I haven't met any other elites, so I don't have a basis to compare there.

Under the contract of carriage, the flight is considered an International flight and it was canceled. We were all re-booked the next day and landed a full 24 hours past originally scheduled time. Doesn't one of the conventions cover us?

The original delay was caused by mx. The plane that was mxed was on the ground the entire night before, as it came in from Chicago at about midnight. UA, thus, had more than 12 hours to fix the mx before they decided to cancel. In the interim, they decided to bring a plane NOT rated to fly over water to carry pax to destination that requires flying over water. Then (surprisingly?) they realized that there would be a safety issue with not having the right flotation equipment requirements (or something to that effect) on board. Someone tried to communicate that they'd fly along the coasts the entire route, but that the flight plan wasn't cleared. IMHO flying a plane down knowing full well you cannot fly it over water does not count as a good faith effort to fix the problem. My concern now is that UA will use that act as a means to get out of obligations of the conventions.

Does anyone have experience with getting compensated under the liabilities spelled out in the conventions? I would like to help a couple of folks out here before I leave this afternoon.