Originally Posted by stephanos99

Apologies that this has dragged on this long. I had tried to post a comment when there was only 7-10 posts but my browser froze and it was 2am in my time zone and I wanted to go to bed so I din't check to see if the post made it through (turns out it didn't). That post was basically saying that enough people had commented on my lack of knowledge on who has the responsibility in case of visa policy changes. It only took a few early comments for me to learn that lesson that I can't expect notification or compensation from AI or UA for visa policy changes. But the blame kept pilling on (maybe some folks commented without reading the full thread and didn't realize I had been pummeled enough already on the topic). I am glad to see that I got a bit of empathy from some folks who realized that most of us would not catch such policy changes so close to travel.
For what it's worth, neither the AI check in agent at KTM nor the UA FB team made any mention of that responsibility nor that it was mine to bear (so I stayed in the dark as to that point until my post here). The AI agent at KTM was actually apologetic for the fact that the change had just recently happened and there was no prior notice (he said it was "5 days ago", so I'm guessing that meant calendar days vs business days, per an earlier question), but he correctly stated that AI wasn't responsible to make other arrangements for me. I am not sure why the offer to fly to DEL was withdrawn, but I am not sure I would've felt comfortable taking it, as he mentioned twice that the information he got from the station managers in India was that Indian immigration was being strict about this change. The UA FB team offered to try and help but again said nothing about the responsibility being mine, which combined with my lack of knowledge on the subject, reinforced my original (erroneous) assumption that AI/UA should have notified me.
I guess as of now my expectation is to get the miles redeposited (not sure why the FB team told me the reservation was canceled when it wasn't) and to hopefully have the redeposit fee waived ($100 for PS). It's still strange that the FB team also said they couldn't see the award space that I was able to book and use. I would assume that if they had been able to see it and change the existing reservation, I wouldn't have needed to pay the close-in award booking fee ($50 for PS). Maybe if I'm lucky they'll waive that too.
Thanks to all who contributed to the discussion. If it helps someone down the line, maybe it was worth all our time.