Way to burst my bubble :)

Those were long-distance trains at the mercy of the private freight railroads, which are highly automated and dispersed in their operations (far more so than 50 years ago when the private carriers operated their own passenger trains). Since cargo doesn't complain and passenger trains play second fiddle, it can take a very long time to recover from extreme weather in remote locations on those transcon trunk lines.

On the other hand, Amtrak owns and operates almost all of the Northeast Corridor itself. It's a capital- and resource-intense operation, but as the flagship of the system they pull out all the stops to keep things running in the Northeast.

Getting back on topic, overnight Northeast Regional trains 66/67 accept checked baggage all the way from BOS to WAS and beyond. If you're traveling on a different Regional or Acela train, you can have your bag checked on the overnight train. And as mentioned above, the carry-on allowance is generous, too. Safe travels!

Fortunately, the 6am flight suffered only about an hour departure (wheels up) delay, and about a 30 min delay on arrival. Not bad at all, even under normal circumstances, in my experience.

Hopefully, carsnoceans was able to make his way to the NYC area at some point this morning. Flight 668 was a bit of a madhouse this morning.

Also, unrelated rant about group 1-2 people standing in a straight long line and completely blocking the corridor. Seriously, people, use a little common sense! It's not hard to turn so the line flows down the corridor instead of across it... And GA's should totally be aware of stuff like that and take a little action. /rant

Oh trust me, I know. I take the Surfliner every day, which is only partially beholden to freight rail and yet has its fair share of issues. I was touting the long distance trains upthread, though, and I think the poster was responding to my blissful account of the NEC by pointing out that the long distance trains I was touting aren't always so pretty. I still maintain, though, that it's often the most resilient way to get around. And if it does get stuck, it's a heck of a lot nicer than getting stuck in a plane or a car.

The other nice thing about 66/67, as I understand it, is that it has a nicer (but still dirt-cheap) business class car, for sleeping.

UA is 45% of ORD pax volume whereas AA is 37.08%. UA has 21.3% more pax volume and had 21.05% more cancelled flights. Seems proportionally equal to me.

Huh -- interesting info! Thanks for it. I've been awed and amazed by what a good phone agent can do in the past, but I'll keep the airport option in mind when stymied by something weird in the future.

Perhaps the least likely to cancel are the wide body operated flights to other domestic hubs. I know there's a 777 to SFO, a 763 to IAH and I think another 763 to IAD. Best strategy IMO is to catch any of these flights and get away from ORD. Even ORD-SFO-ATL doesn't sound too bad compared to sitting in the terminal for days on end at ORD! And I think there's also the 777 to HNL which would be something worth thinking about if you're desperate to get out of ORD...

Anyone trying to use these numbers from Hercules as metrics is just agenda hungry. This pretty much sucked for everyone, pax and carriers alike.

Anyone have an update as to how the call center times are? I don't want to sit on hold for another unrelated issues if they're still jammed packed with people getting re-booked.

I called three times today. Almost no wait each time.

Unrelated, but I had to spend $320 of my own money today on flights and will overnight in NYC, but I think I'm getting home tomorrow. Only 4 days delayed.

Unfortunately, I had to scrub one of my MRs due to this storm, in which operations canceled two of the six segments.

I've been checking my CC every so often since Jan 7, looking for the refund credit to appear, but 15 days after I canceled, still nothing. Well, today I get an email from Customer Refund Services:

Dear iamreallybored:
Customer Refund Services has received your request for refund of the above referenced ticket.

We are pleased to inform you that your request for a refund has been approved and was processed today. You may verify the details of your refund by entering your 13-digit United ticket number, beginning with 016 or 005, and your last name or your 8-digit refund request number (see above), using the following link; http://www.united.com/web/en-us/cont...s/refunds.aspx

Thank you for choosing United Airlines. We look forward to serving you again.

Sincerely,
Customer Refund Services
1-800-UNITED-1
FAX: 713-324-1431

I wonder if this is part of Smisek's grand plan to save $2B this year? Maybe with my $168.30, which UA held onto for a few extra weeks, multiplied by whatever they get to keep in interest earnings from their institutional rate money market account... :p

It's almost as though they had to process tens of thousands of refunds, which made it take about a week longer than it normally does... Can't imagine why ;)

While jetblue had our refund posted within 24 hours.

This should be an automated process at any respectable organization. Zappos and JetBlue know how to process refunds. Why can't UA? :rolleyes: