Originally Posted by
andrewwm
Definitely rant worthy (particularly the no notification of changes), but I wonder how much you've flown if you haven't encountered a clueless phone rep on other airlines
I fly extensively, but have never come across such a clueless agent as this UA agent was. Clueless in all aspects of his job. Most problem agents I've run across just have a problem with not knowing a particular rule or wanting to do one particular task. This guy seemingly didn't want to, or know how to do a single thing in his job description.
Originally Posted by
chinatraderjmr
I would have simply demanded a refund on every single ticket. It may have been easier to start from scratch
And much more expensive. I bought the tickets back when they were much cheaper, and with the rerouting that was necessary (due to some of my flights being cancelled), would have likely added much more additional costs, beyond just the fare difference.
Originally Posted by
Palal
While I feel your frustration, have you ever heard of flyertalk rule no.1: if you don't like an agent, hang up politely and call again
In hindsight, I should have hung up much sooner than I did, and got a different agent. I had it in my mind though that he ought to be able to help me with at least one change, then I could hangup and get another agent to fix some of the other changes. In the end, in spite of being very frustrated, I kept going because I kind of just wanted to see how utterly incompetent the agent was and if he was going to continue his procedure of denying there were any flights whatsoever to fix their screw up.
Originally Posted by
LilAbner
Rule #2 (which could actually be moved up to rule #1)
ALWAYS -ALWAYS check your itineraries at least once or twice a week (or daily as I do --- BUT DEFINITELY EVERY SATURDAY MORNING).
Waiting months, like he did the first time, and weeks later the second time is a receipt for disaster!
In his defense, the Op, didn't know as he normally doesn't fly UA, but from now on he needs to keep a closer eye on em, especially if he doesn't want to receive the rhetoric from an incompetent res agent later on!!!
Well, most all of my flying experience is with Asian based airlines, so perhaps that's one of my problems. I was expecting too much from UA. Of course I know the service on-board doesn't compare, but I was at least expecting UA would have their act together with their IT department. I fly UA rarely, at most a couple times a year, and all previous bookings with UA were made at the last minute, so there was no need for me to be checking constantly. I guess the other factor is that this was my first experience with UA since the merger. Based on some comments here, sounds like that may be at the root of the problem.
Anyways, wondering why they informed me of one of the changes, albeit very late after they made the changes, but not of the others. All the bookings were made with the same email address. To me it just smacks of a completely incompetent IT department. And the part of how there system allows for them to book onward connecting flights that depart prior to your arriving flight, it just boggles the mind how their IT department doesn't even program the system for such checking. What if I didn't spot the error on my own, and arrive at an airport only to find my connecting flight left a half hour prior? Wondering if anyone ever experience that sort of thing before? I've never in all my experience ever run across an airline that doesn't do even such a basic check on bookings.