I was travelling in a group of 20 people last week, flying from Las Vegas to Bangkok via two airlines of Star Alliance. First leg, Las Vegas to Los Angeles by United Airlines Flight UA1483 scheduled at 8.29am and second leg from Los Angeles to Bangkok via Tokyo by All Nippon Airways Flight NH005 scheduled at 11.35am.

We were at Las Vegas Int' Airport at 6.30am and splitted into a few sub-groups, a few people started checked-in personally at counter and a few people started using automatic check-in terminals. Chaos started when two people were told that they missed the 6.30am flight??? while the rest got the 8am flight that rerouted to Fresno. Flight UA1483 was cancelled and our inquiries with UA staff at counter were simply ignored saying that we were blocking other passengers.

The two people who were told that they missed the 6.30am flight (in which their e-ticket were clearly 8.29am) had to buy the new Southwest tickets flying from Las Vegas at 9am to Los Angeles managed to catch the NH005 flight in-time.

The rest had to fly to Fresno and then from Fresno to Los Angeles. About half had the two boarding passes with assigned seats, another half were not confirmed seats for the leg Fresno-LA. When the plane left Fresno for LA at 10am, 4 people were left behind for the 2.30pm flight (in which their seats were still not confirmed at that time).

By now my group were reduced to 18 people who missed the NH005 flight and had to stay overnight at the Hotel near LAX. ANA agreed to take us on board the following day but only 8 people were confirmed the seats, 10 were on waiting list. Eventually these 10 people had to buy the new China Airlines tickets from LA to Bangkok so that they could return to Bangkok the same day with the rest of the group.

The local travel agent in Bangkok who made the booking for our group insisted that they had informed UA while purchasing the UA1483 tickets that these were for a group with connecting flight (the e-ticket did show the endorsement “INT CONJ TKT NO….” ). But so far UA office in Bangkok still would not shoulder any responsibility.

I have a few simple questions:
1- Why UA staff did not listen to passengers’ plea and did not give clear information.
2- How could UA tossed passengers around while there were a few direct flights later (though in any case we would still miss the NH005 but would be much better than be sent to Fresno.)
3- How could UA deny responsibility for all the cost incurred?
4- What should I do?

I would appreciate answers from our dear frequent flyers friends.