It's like risk management. If you know your flights from a certain airport have a high probability of getting delayed, you should analyze the problem and come up with solution including contingency plans, maybe having a plane or two on standby to ramp up capacity later when the skies are clear. Unfortunately this is not how the airline industry operates since it costs money, and we know how good the airline industry is at gouging their customers and providing crap service especially one carrier called United.

They were not informed of any weather waiver, and in any case, I am unsure how United is going to refund part of an itinerary in a multi-stop ticket. United's website also seems to indicate the travel waiver is a promise for no additional-fees for rescheduled flights (which is to be entitlement but they are making it sound like it's not) and not a refund for cancellation. The URL to Chicago waiver is not even working, great job United! Again the United staff must have LIED to poor folks that have no internet access. If anything this episode that shown that United lies to their customer habitually, because they think they can get away with it... should have told my folks to fly with Delta, which is the normal carrier I use.

So let's focus on the solution then.

Like it or not the weather is impacting flights dramatically. The odds of seats on other flights opening is slim... there are a lot of delayed people many, presumably some who have waited longer and from their same flight thoes with built up status. The longer the cancellations go the worse it gets... lines increase, flights get more and more backed up.

That's the bad side.

Now the good side.

There's a travel waiver issued the 24th-26th meaning refunds and cancellations can occur penalty free depending on what they try to do. Thus they have options that do not require them to loose what they already paid. Options are good. http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,52939,00.html

Try Delta, try anyone, but if one airline can't fly, they don't let the plane next door go either, weather is almost always not an airline decision.

They offer compensations to voluntarily give up their seats when they have too many confirmed reservations for a flight. They don't pay volunteers to give up their seats so that standby passengers can ride.

Of course. I would have taken the bus, or rental car, as soon as the first 24-hour delay became apparent. The airline will refund the fare for the flight(s) that aren't taken due to the original flight being canceled. Even without the refund, a $30 bus fare is a lot less than a hotel room.

Their travel insurance, which I'm sure you had them take out, will cover all their additional expenses to get back home, and hotel and the rest.

Seriously, why are they still in Chicago? There are so many other alternatives to get where they need to go.

There's an Amtrak leaving at 6 that will get them there about midnight.

Yes weather is affects all airlines, but the way airlines handle it differ. This is not my first negative experience with United.

About a year back, I flew in from an international flight on United/Continental, and that flight took off late (for some reason it likes to sit on the tarmac for 1hr+), and as a result I lost my connection. United/Continental provided the same screwed up "service", no apologies at all and I was delayed for hours.

Compare this to Delta. Once they lost my check-in luggage and got it back to me within 6hrs. Not to mention they also provided a complimentary kit (some toiletries and a change of clothes), even when I did not ask for it.

Not to mention that Delta does not have any air-related fatalities in modern time (last I check was in 2006). United on the other hand, has a long list of air fatalities.

It's already obvious that United in screwed up in everything. From their customer service to quality control and safety standards.

I guess they weren't expecting a cancellation of their re-booked flight?

As I said the travel waiver option was never presented to them. So it's on the website, but for those people who don't carry iphones with them, will they know about it? No...

Isn't this where you would come in? You seem keenly interested in their situation and clearly have access to the internet...kindly inform them of their other options - help them get to their destination!

Not counting September 11th, the last United Fatalities were in 1997. Delta had fatalities in 2006. Who's LYING now?

Or was September 11th United's fault too?

I think the OP's family would be home safe and enjoying a home-cooked meal and a nap on the sofa if the OP put as much time and effort into finding them alternate transport as he/she does into demanding that UA do something about it.

Like it or not, the airlines don't owe you hotel money for weather delays, can't magically get more planes and crews from thin air, can't fly extra flights even if they had those magical extra planes, won't throw someone else off of an existing flight to make room for a delayed passenger, don't sell bus tickets, and won't kiss you on the head to make all those Won'ts and Can'ts seem less mean. That's the way the industry is, and you might as well go complain to The Weather Channel about there having been thunderstorms and tornadoes in the first place.

Use the force for the good and not the dark side, Luke. Go book your family some bus or train tickets and get everyone home.

Handling parents IRROP from afar:
 

CASE STUDY:

Feb 2010 Chilean earthquake two days before my parents and their friends' cruise disembark in Santiago.

Upon finding out about the quake and verifying damages and pending short term closure of SCL I called their airline and upon confirming flights cancellations, I immediately reconfirm them and my aunt/uncle to a flight days later not standby onto next available flight.

Next I call their travel insurance and got confirmation along with agent name and ID that their out of pocket expenses are covered.

Then two rooms for two at Crown Plaza were booked for 5 days in SCL in a neighbourhood where there was minimal damage.

Their pier to airport transfer company was contacted and their booking changed to Pier to Crown Plaza and then Crown Plaza to airport.

All these were emailed to them C/O their Princess ship.

They got off the ship, transfer driver lend them his phone, I confirmed all arrangement for them and they had an all expense paid post cruise vacation.

While in SCL they met other passengers from their cruise who were coming back from the airport with all their bags after waiting standby all day with no luck. Others had to grab whatever accommodations they can while some had to line up at the ticket office of airlines.

CONCLUSION:

As a son, this day and age should use the internet and other technologies to assist with their parents travel IRROP or WX issues instead of carping.

EC regulation 261/2004 is pretty clear on that issue, no matter what an airport poster or BA agent might tell you. Phone calls, feeding and - if necessary - accommodation are obligatory in any event of longer flight delays and cancellations. Compensation, though, is not.

An Opposite Case Study
 

Offering the counter-point to tentseller's excellent story.

Situation: young (22), stubborn, inexperienced cousin from the UK visiting. We meet up in LAS, spend a few fun days, and take separate flights home; she is headed to MCO for the night and we are headed to DCA. The plan is for her to overnight in MCO then fly up midday the next day to meet us at DCA.

Problem: She texts from the air saying they are circling PHX dumping fuel; there is a mechanical issue and they're diverting. She's obviously panicked, moreso by the fact that the passengers are using phones in flight than anything.

By the time she's landed (40 minutes or so later) we had:

-Contacted the airline and placed an award on hold, PHX-DCA, nonstop, departing around 9am the next day. The only down-side here is we were using US miles and they don't do one-way awards but the total award price was only 25k miles and no last-minute booking fees due to my status; way better than the $900 fare.

As fate would have it, we actually had her checked bags with us, to save her on the bag fees plus the girl does not travel light, no need for her to drag the family tuba down to MCO for 12 hours

-Found a points-stretcher room at a Hilton-family hotel 4 minutes from the airport, located the number to call to arrange the airport shuttle, and downloaded an airport map which we sent in email so she'd be able to find her way to the hotel shuttle

-Lined up a friend who lives in PHX "just in case" our cousin needed a ride to a Target or something for incidentals

The plane landed in PHX at around 8:30pm local time and her departure for DCA *had she chosen to do so* was around maybe 10am, leaving plenty of time to have a decent dinner, hot shower, relax in a comfy hotel bed, watch some tv and enjoy a nice flight the next day.

BUT I told you she is a stubborn girl and she refused to take any of these solutions. She insisted on waiting for the MX plane to be repaired, which ultimately happened around 10:30pm local; she arrives at MCO at 4am or so. The budget hotel holding her prepaid reservation is no longer operating a shuttle for the night; they can pick her up at 6 but if she wants to go there now, she needs to take a taxi. There are 2 taxi's at the taxi stand; the drivers have an actual altercation over who gets to have her fare, and the winner ends up ripping her off to the tune of $70 for a 7-minute drive. She gets about 2 hours sleep in a bed she describes as "itchy", no breakfast, pays a dollar to print her boarding pass, back to the airport, and the kicker: her flight to DCA has gone MX. 3 more hours of delay. We pick her up at DCA, put her in our guest room and she sleeps for about 20 hours (hence missing a full day of vacation).

Moral of the story: sticking to the original plan and waiting for the airline to solve your problems is quite often a bad, bad idea.

I do have sympathy for the OP, since the situation is frustrating. However, no airline headquartered in the U.S. will do anything for you if the delay or cancellation is due to weather (even weather at a seemingly unrelated airport). So it will be no use to switch your flying to another airline.

This happens from time to time, and you either (a) take out insurance or (b) live with the consequences. I have always opted for (b).

I live in Chicago, so to just add a few data points:
1. Today (Thursday): It's been raining on and off here all day. I drove downtown at noon & the fog/cloud cover was so low that I couldn't see above about the 50th floor of the John Hancock building.
2. Yesterday (Wednesday): Yesterday's weather couldn't have been nastier. Rain & dark clouds in the morning followed by a brief clearing followed by dense fog in the afternoon, followed by more rain.
3. Yesterday (Wednesday): Oh, and huge storms (tornadoes) across Kansas & Missouri yesterday, throwing, which surely led to a lot of cancellations on flights coming from the south and west. Of course, that leads to cascading delays.
4. Yesterday (Wednesday): I mainly fly AA, and know that AA posted on their FB page yesterday that a lot of flights out of DFW were cancelled yesterday as planes were inspected for hail damage. (Of course, that leads to cascading delays, too.)
5. Tuesday: Tornadoes roll through Oklahoma City & shut down a lot of flights out of Dallas, etc. (See item #4 for just one example of the aftermath.)
6. Sunday: Massive tornadoes roll through Joplin, Missouri. Again, these lead to cascading delays & cancellations.
7. Last Friday & Saturday: Fog so thick in Chicago that you couldn't see more than a few dozen yards at times.
8. Today: I'm currently looking at a NBC News weather map that's showing the entire eastern half of the country--from Chicago/Dallas & on--at risk for severe thunderstorms & possible tornadoes over the next 24 hours.

So, just to recap, the midwest has been stuck in a horrible weather pattern for a week now. Recovering from a single weather delay can take a day or two. Recovering from day after day after day of horrible weather can take a lot longer. Do you know anyone who tried to fly to/from the east coast between December 26 and early January? I was on one of the last flights out of PHL on the 26th, but there were people who slept at airports for days because--unlike in rainy, foggy conditions--driving hundreds of miles in a blizzard just wasn't an option.

If I were in your shoes and looking at the current weather forecast in Chicago, I'd be booking a car/train/bus to Detroit for your friends. It's the only logical option.