Thanks for the info. Won't UA even offer a credit for future travel? I was planning to try to match my US Chairman's status to Premier-something status next year, but I'm not inclined to be a UA loyalist after this.

I checked the standard UA fare rules, which state that a ticket is cancelled if not rebooked on or before the date of outbound travel. I would have rebooked my return flights when I called before the segment I skipped if the reservation agent had told me the truth about the status of the remaining segments. I was aware that later segments would be cancelled for a no-show, as I've had it happen before (due to a late-arriving flight on another airline), but I thought that when I called UA, I would have been told the truth.

What bugs me as well is that a few weeks ago I took an IAD-LGA flight but my boarding pass wasn't collected because there was no agent at the gate when I boarded a few minutes before the door closed (so I'd assume the UA computer system would treat that the same as a no-show), and I stopped at the LGA RCC and told the agent what had happened, and the agent assured me that nothing would happen to my return flights, and they turned out fine.

Thanks again.