Originally Posted by
UAL320
In this case, the award change was made on Friday May 13th, but as of Monday May 15th, still showed as confirmed on United (greater than 48 hours). The agent essentially confirmed that if nothing had happened, we would have shown up to the airport and my wife told she didn't have a ticket.
It never ticketed. That's the fundamental problem. There's no contract without a ticket.
Originally Posted by
UAL320
My thought with the DOT complaint was that since the tickets were booked through United, and the transaction was completed in the US by a US citizen and since United is a registered business in the US, they have an obligation to follow US rules and regulations.
Which US rules and regulations are you referring to?
Originally Posted by
UAL320
I guess my thought is United is in a partnership with ET - there's ultimately someone at a managerial level that should be able to connect with an ET manager and remedy the situation to uphold the contract that was made (and they confirmed).
They are not in a legal partnership. They are both members of a marketing alliance (Star Alliance). It's true the members of these alliances refer to their alliance "partners" but that's just marketing talk, not an actual legal partnership. There's a reference in another post to a "liason" presumably meaning the Star Alliance liason but I'm not sure that exists anymore. You could try asking for the Star Alliance "liason" or "desk" next time you call UA, and see if that gets you anywhere.
This kind of stuff used to happen all the time. LX, for example, was renowned for failing to ticket UA award itineraries. It seems to be less common now, probably because the systems are better. But the basic rule was and is that if the itinerary never ticketed, there's no obligation beyond a refund. Your energies will probably be better spent working an alternative booking rather than trying to fight UA over a non-existent legal obligation.