Originally Posted by
MikeMpls
We had an award trip to Australia booked for the 2nd half of May, outbound in coach on UA, return in business class on China Air.
Received an email today from United -- in Chinese. I don't read Chinese.
Logged into our accounts and found that the itinerary had been canceled, leaving us holding the bag on $1K in nonrefundable domestic Australian flights on Qantas & JetStar, plus some hotel reservations.
This has to be the absolute worst customer service example I've ever experienced in the reservations department.
You must be booked for the return on
Air China (IATA: CA), not China Airlines (IATA: CI) as they are not part of Star Alliance. Likely, what happened was that Air China decided to cut a route from Australia to China (by any chance, Sydney-Beijing?, that flight changes to a 1-stop via Shanghai during Australian winter but operates on a different flight number so you will need to check for availability to make the change). Call UA Reservations ASAP and ask if you can be booked on other carriers with open availability or if UA can open availability for you.