United accidentally cancelled reservation
 

So, my son and his wife were going SEA - LAX on Friday 1/3 and returning this morning at 6am LAX-SFO-SEA.

On Friday, they arrived at the airport early in an attempt to standby for an earlier flight. They were not successful at that and ended up on their originally scheduled flight.

Fast forward to yesterday when they tried to do online check-in and they were told "please check-in at airport". When they arrived at the ticket counter, they were told that their reservation had been cancelled because somehow by doing standby on an earlier flight (which would have been SEA-SFO-LAX) and because they had missed the connecting flight in SFO, someone cancelled their reservation.

So, they didn't get on their originally scheduled 6am flight out of LAX and were scheduled to leave on a flight with Alaska Air at 8:30PM!!!

Fortunately, they were able to standby for an earlier flight (after being told that "Alaskan doesn't do standby") and left on an 8AM flight.

They were also given some meal vouchers and were advised to complain on United.com.

Does anyone think they have a chance at any significant compensation?

So we're talking 2 whole hours here? Indeed - contact a lawyer immediately to preserve your rights. in the world of air travel, this is horrible and the mental anquish must be overwhelming. Thousands and thousands of dollars are warranted.

No, they have little to no chance, status or not. They got "SHARESed" but it seems things turned out fine, albeit with a bit of headache.

So UA incorrectly auto-cancelled their reservation and rebooked them on another carrier ultimately arriving two hours late? Ouch. I don't understand why UA couldn't reinstate their reservations; was the flight oversold? — did they escape paying IDB compensation? — if so, should they compensate these pax as though they were IDB'd?

If IDB rules applied, each pax would be entitled to 200% of their ticket price up to a maximum of $1,300. But, it only applies if the two pax were properly ticketed and the flight was oversold. Simply erroneously cancelling the tickets does not trigger the rule.

It may be unfair and poor drafting as well as a Catch-22, but the two pax did not have valid tickets (through no fault of their own), so 14 CFR 250 does not apply.

I find that hard to believe that is true. If an airline can just cancel your ticket and avoid 14 CFR 250, then no one would ever be denied boarding... the airline would just take all the extra people and cancel their reservations.

You find it hard to believe that a rule promulgated by a bureaucracy does not serve its intended purpose because it is poorly drafted?

People and businesses escape the consequences of their actions every day because somebody didn't write clearly enough.

Incident happened in 2013, but compensation resolved today, so this thread it is.

3.5 hour delay on IAH-OMA Skywest CR7 due to up-line mechanical issues and aircraft swap

I was Platinum at the time, and traveling in economy on a V fare.

Reported the delay via .com and was compensated with 8000 RDMs, no other options given.

Mechanical delay DSM-IAH -PDX ,,,,,,could see misconnect but 1K desk said I was wrong and call back later as it still said on time ----1 hour later no option via DEN as no seats (thanks to regionals)----ended up at own expense at IAH overnight.
(3rd misconnect in 2 months from DSM)------offered nothing from customer care after writing in.(almost same reply as previous incident when also offered nothing).....
---they just don't care.

Systemwide upgrade applied to reservation with DCA-ORD segment, which confirmed. Flight cancelled and pax rebooked on alternative flight in E+ middle. $200 voucher given for downgrade.

$150 for broken business seat MUC to ORD. Fair?
 

Curious if others think $150 electronic travel cert is fair compensation...

The flight in question was a transatlantic flight from Munich to
Chicago. I purchased a business class ticket for a total
price of $2,398, including taxes/fees (Business class sale over thanksgiving: LAX-IAD-MUC-ORD-LAX).

The type of aircraft was a Boeing 777 with lie-flat seats. Unfortunately, the foot
rest on my seat would not work properly. Each time I tried to raise the
foot rest, I would hear gears grinding as the foot rest struggled to
move. It never was able to move up and support the weight of my legs
and feet. Consequently, I was not able to recline my seat to a
comfortable position with the foot rest extended. Nor was I able to
bring the seat to a lie-flat position. I found this is extremely inconvenient
on a 10 hour flight. After notifying the flight attendants, the purser
came by to apologize and presented me with the form to contact United.

I contacted United via their website (as instructed on the form) and received an apology and a $150 cert. I was disappointed and wrote again kindly asking that United reconsider the amount of compensation offered
to me given the severity of the inconvenience, my status as a United 1K (closing in on 1MM miles), and the number of years of being a loyal Continental/United customer.

Response I got was that the $150 was not "compensation" but a gesture of goodwill. They declined to up the amount. Seems low to me. Looking for advice if I'm being unreasonable. I was thinking $300-400 would be fair.

Thanks for any insight.

I would consider it inadequate. 1K in paid J and you did not get a true lie flat seat. I agree $300-400 or 15-20,000 miles sounds more like it.

Is there anything I can do at this point? I've already asked United to reconsider and the rep said that no additional "goodwill" would be offered. I've received $150 certs in the past for a delayed bag. I'm shocked that a broken business seat on a paid ticket on a 10 hour flight warrants the same $150. My communications have only been over email. Anyone think that a phone call to the 1K line change anything?

Very well said.

Recently flew SFO-FRA-FCO.
Flt 903 on Jan 3rd.
I check in at 11:15a for a 1:50p flight.
We sit at the gate for more than 3 hours due to a mechanical problem, the finally take off about 5:15p.
Arrive FRA at noon, miss connection at 12:20 rebooked to FCO at 4:05p,
Arrive at 6:00p in FCO, my checked bag doesn't show up.
LUH says it never arrived from SFO.
Finally got it 4:00p the next day.
I am a 1K and was on a W fare with a GPU.
Is it worth any compensation?