dcpdxtrans

I really don't understand why anyone would vent /rant first instead of call UA first. If UA didn't rectify things after, then post & let the FT community help from there.

keepssmile

Can you post the Chinese email you received here?

Often1

The OP was at 12:18 CT. He had time to post three messages before he actually called UA, only to find his call answered in less than a minute and UA well on the way to rebooking him for something caused by another carrier.

Yes, it would have been nice to find the email in English, but it's hardly crazy that the system selected Chinese given that the operating carrier is a Chinese carrier. It is also clear that receiving the email triggered OP to do what he presumably would have done had it been in English.

This thread is about a solution looking for a problem. Why not have called UA first and then posted if there was a problem?

mahasamatman

Sure it is. Where do they get the email address? From your profile, which also contains your country of residence. Not to mention that the flight was merely transiting China. Of the possible languages associated with the booking (American English, Chinese, Australian English), Chinese was the poorest choice.

FT would be empty if people did that. But in this case, it seems the original complaint was the Chinese email, not the cancellation, and calling United wouldn't fix that.

LilAbner

This seems to be the m.o., especially on this forum, as of late.
Instead of making a simple phone call (which was answered w/i 1 min by an agent that rates an "A") and getting the itin straightened out, the "Friendly Skies" are falling thread is manufactured.

Air China/China Air (who cares) obviously sent the e-mail to the OP via UAL and he knew that he needed to call res. Once things were straighten out to his satisfaction his NEW thread could have provided the listening audience with the satisfactorily results.

I don't care if I get an e-mail in Swahili from an airline, once I go to my reservations and see a schedule change the first thing I'm doing is calling the booking airline. The last thing I'm doing is posting superfluous, acerbic comments prior to making a simple call to UA res.

cfischer

If you had a paid ticket with a stopover in PEK I would ask UA to make that happen for you. There should be other partner airlines they can work with and w/ a C-class ticket there should be some sort of availability.

Kacee

+1

I'd save my outrage until it was confirmed I actually had reason to be outraged.

Often1

If OP had posted, "I got an email in Chinese from UA, but I don't read Chinese.... what should I do?" My advice would have been the same. Call UA.

But, to make this out as some major fail isn't the case.

Jorgen

Really? Have customer service expectations slipped so far?

mahasamatman

You are a very trusting person. My SOP to receiving any email from any source in a foreign language is to report it as SPAM or phishing and delete it without opening. If United is sending these emails, it's exactly the same as sending no notification at all.

The fact that it allegedly came from United is a red herring. It's trivial to spoof a return address.

controller1

The profile also includes one's language preference. Therefore, I disagree with making excuses for the UA system sending an email in Chinese.

MikeMpls

And United MileagePlus has had us at our home address in MN since we joined 8+ years ago, ditto for CO OnePass (both ex Plats) for 5+ years.

One of my coworkers is from China, and she read the email earlier. What's strange is that it was written as a confirmation of my cancellation, and the bottom of the HTML version (I only saw the text version earlier) has one line in English at the bottom: "This one-time e-mail was sent to confirm your ticket cancellation on united.com." I received a PM from someone who had received a similar email, and in his/her case there apparently was a fraudulent cancellation originating from an IP address in China.

So, keep an eye on your Air China itins.

Then I'd have to go back to my coworker & have her vet it for personal info. She's gone home for the day.

Good intuition, I will run the headers through SpamCop.

Apparently.

Came from coair.com at 74.202.77.44, if reported as spam, reports would only go to [email protected], so the email appears to be legit and to originate within UA/CO.

tw telecom holdings, inc. TWTC-NETBLK-9 (NET-74-202-0-0-1) 74.202.0.0 - 74.203.255.255
Continental Airlines TWTC-CONTINENTAL (NET-74-202-77-0-1) 74.202.77.0 - 74.202.77.255

Sykes

My United.com email notification preferences randomly got set to Spanish about 2 months ago. I wouldn't be surprised if a similar glitch set yours to Chinese.

mduell

That's a rather narrow world view. Calling UA seems like a more reasonable response.

Often1

It's actually the view of someone who arrives at an airport 1/2-way around the world only to find no aircraft because there's no flight.

Or almost as bad, but perhaps more galling, waiting a week to call in and finding out the there is no longer any open award space on CA and that there is nothing UA can do to force CA to do anything, so they redeposit your miles as a refund.