Good afternoon,

Backstory - my wife and I booked separate award tickets (different PNRs) through United for travel scheduled MRS-BRU-ADD-CPT in J (operated by ET). Not keen on the routing, a few days later I checked inventory from other cities in Europe in J and GVA had 2 seats open at the same mileage cost. So I called the United desk to get this changed. The agent at United was able to do so, and I got a confirmation # for both of us, to include the confirm # with ET. Great! so I thought...

When I went to check our PNRs on ET.com, my PNR worked fine and showed the correct routing, hers had a different routing and said still pending. I called ET to see what was going on, and they said the problem was with United and that I needed to call them. So I called the United help line to figure out what had happened and they said everything looked good on their end and to give it a few days as sometimes it takes a few days to process changes and re-ticket.

Fast forward a few days, and nothing changed. So I called United and after an hour on hold and a supervisor getting on, they told me there was an issue with the reservation and it was actually not ticketed correctly. But, when they went to look at inventory for the flight, it appeared that it was no longer available so I was SoL. The supervisor made reference to one of their agents had changed something (added a middle name or something) and that was causing ET to not be able to ticket and now there was no more inventory.

So, here I am, with confirmation emails (and mileage debited from my United account) showing a routing of GVA-ADD-CPT for 2 people in J yet United telling me it's not correct. I find this to be a complete violation of the contract of carriage. Had I not been somewhat travel savvy and shown up at GVA, my wife would have been told there was no seat for her and that the ticket wasn't valid (this was confirmed by the customer supervisor). Also, the United supervisor flat out cancelled her PNR (without my consent) while I was on the phone with her and she was trying to figure it out. I called back to inquire about that, and they could see it was cancelled but weren't sure why (miles were never re-debited into my account). They then asked me if I wanted the miles back, but out of caution of agreeing to something that gets United off the hook for these changes I simply said I never consented to cancellation of a PNR and therefore I'm not going to voluntarily agree for mileage refund until this was elevated to someone outside of the call center (and the Vendor supply chain).

What's my recourse here? I'm pretty furious as I have confirmation from United that my wife and I were booked and confirmed GVA-ADD-CPT in J and now because of an "internal" error that's actually not the case, and a supervisor flat out cancelled her PNR. United is essentially selling a product they can't fulfill and their answer was "we are sorry, try back later or here have your miles back.."

My wife and I booked plans out of CPT so aren't flexible on our travel day (nor do I think we should be) nor do I think it's appropriate for the airline to rebook us on some circuitous routing because of their mistake. The supervisor admitted on the phone that the company had violated their contract of carriage but that there was noting they could do.

I went on to united.com earlier and filed a complaint but am also considering filing a DOT complaint. Anything else I'm missing here?

Thanks!