I feel for the OP, I'm still dealing with similar situation with UA, not as dramatic and untruthful though. Hope they compensate for your troubles.

Last episode:
UA charged my credit card in full for the original reservation (the transaction which supposedly didn't go through) on 6 July (Friday) - the day I was trying to fix all this.

So in addition to my friend now having to go on a new ticket from NBO to BBO I will have to fight for my money back as I was charged for the return leg twice (as well as for the late ticketing fee AND the call center fee while I never intended to use the call center).

What is the best way to get a speedy resolution to a complaint?

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Send faxed letters to the dot and your state's attorney general office and the consumer group for passengers. Cc ua on all of the correspondence. Good luck. You may also want to tweet to your local media outlets.

to OP
Call the reservation line and tell the agent what had happened.
If the agent doesn't want to help you, ask for his/her name and tell her you will file a DoT complain.
COdbaUA changed my friend's award ticket from C to Y due to schedule change.
They didn't want to put him back to C although no seat had been sold.
After the agent wast told about the DOT complain, my friend found out it became a paid ticket few minutes later.
The new UA is just terrible and like to lie as CO used to be.

Also, while many people get upset about the willingness of FTers to advocate for credit card chargebacks, this is a situation in which chargeback for at least the extra ticket and fees seems incredibly obvious.

to the OP, are you in Ghana? Some of the recourses mentioned obviously wouldn't be as readily available if that's the case. But still very worthwhile to take it up with the DoT as the airline that is @#$#@ you over is a US airline, regardless of where you're based or where the itinerary is.

Yes I am based in Ghana (so no United office anymore, except one employee).

I can see how booking a reward ticket from Ghana with a US credit card for a flight Kenya-Ghana-Somalia for another person might raise a few red flags, but I still think it should be something which can be resolved, since all my contact information (phone/email etc.) was up to date.

I just saw when checking my Google Voice records for a total amount of time spent on the phone (340 minutes if anyone is interested) that I got two incoming calls from 1800-UNITED1 to my Google Voice no. one of the days I called, although I never communicated this no. to them. Would this be an automated survey or do they actually make calls from that no.? They didn't leave a message!

To the OP
Try to contact this two following email address
[email protected],
[email protected].

The most likely compensation you will get are either miles or vouchers. They give out vouchers frequently for anything.

BTW, How's the Y on ET like? Is it good? I am still considering to fly ET from IAD-ADD-CAN.

I would hope that at least I get the $200 overpaid taxes/charges back + hopefully some miles/vouchers for the 5+ hours on the phone and ending up with the wrong destination since they cancelled it.

Y in ET is "fine", but nothing more, entertainment options are few. In general, I would think there should be faster options for this route, but if money/availability is the issue you will definitely survive. Service is friendly (although they tend to wake you up for every meal). What is great with ET is that for any overnight stay on any paid ticket visa/hotel/transfer and meals are usually included. Not sure if this is the case with award tickets also.

I'm very sorry to hear about this and wish I could offer more advice and support than has already been offered. I would strongly suggest filing a complaint with the US Dept. of Transportation (DOT). There are online links provided in some threads here in the UA forum. Or perhaps you can google it or someone who knows the link can post it.

One other route is to try to find consumer/travel magazines and sites where you can report this situation, to see if they will write about it or even follow up. But I realize that's a long shot.

I hope you get this all resolved to your satisfaction, though how UA will compensate for its incompetence and your understandable aggravation remains to be seen.

Yes, it's the same on award tickets.

BTW, as another Accra based person, these frustrations are not uncommon with Mileage Plus (and with OnePass before that). It took me over 8 hours of calls before I finally got them to accept my Ghana issued VISA card for the first time. I've also had segments (SA not ET though) drop out of award reservations due to time changes and then advised that the flight no longer has availability. It's just par for the course. Be persistent and keep stating your case. Eventually someone will figure out how to fix it.

To the OP: What did UAInsider (Shannon) have to say on the matter?

UA Insider (not Shannon - different name) just responded, asked for some clarification. Thread moved so pointed rep to the new thread.

Didn't file any complaint yet, wanted to get this all together on the weekend. However I missed to check ET318 flight status on 10 Jul to show UA that it actually operated although they claimed it was cancelled. Now on ET and flightstats.com I cannot search 2 days back. Anywhere I can still see actual departure/arrival for this flight to prove that it operated?

What do you mean you cannot search 2 days back on flightstats.com? See here

Thanks - wasn't aware this is possible logged in.
Am trying to formulate my complete complaint to UA/DOT now, but it is difficult to put it in few words, because I was misinformed so many times.

Exec Summary for me is that flight was not automatically ticketed, when manually ticketed agent only ticket the outbound was ticketed and inbound reservation was lost. To get that back I spend 5+ h on the phone and 2+ in the defunct ACC United office, yet the last agent just cancelled my reservation without asking me. In the meantime I was misinformed that my CC was not charged/working (however I was charged), so I was double charged. I also was told that ET cancelled the flight for original leg 4, so I would accept a different route after the agent cancelled my confirmed reservation on it - this turned out not to be true - the flight operated as planned, there was just no X availability on it anymore.

In summary, I am out $200 in double charged taxes, my friend had to buy a ticket NBO-BBO instead of flying award directly, and I was out around 8h of my time.

Does that make sense as summary? Of course I would attach details of my call records etc.

A lot of airlines w hubs in out of the way cities do this. It's a great service. EK does it in Dubai, even for pax on award tkts as well. Obviously a full F pax gets a limo to the Le Meridien while a Y FF tkt holder gets a bus to a hotel with a name I still can't pronounce after 13 years living in Dubai but the point is its a great service

Also avail a Oman Air in Muscat, Gulf Air in Bahrain, etc. great way to get a little local color for free, even though it's usually just a night

Who is [email protected]