Denied boarding because didn't have Visa for China, though only connecting there.
 

Letter Of Complaint to United Airlines
June 8, 2014 at 9:03pm

I, [pax. name deleted by Moderator], would like to file a grievance withUnited Airlines. On May 9, 2014 my father, youngest brother, my boyfriend and Iall arrived at Sky Harbor International airport to start our travel to the Philippines. My stepmother had already been there for a few weeks and waswaiting for our arrival. My brother, from Austin Texas, had left the previous day with his girlfriend and was arriving in Manila that same day. When we went to the ticket counter tocheck our bags the system was not processing our passports so a woman came overto assist us. After looking at our passports and itinerary for a brief second,she asked us where our visas were. We were all surprised and explained that wedidn’t have visas and didn’t know we needed them. Not one of our family members who had traveled needed one and our travel agent had told us we didn’t need one. (We were flying United from PHX to SF, and from SF we wereflying AIR CHINA to Beijing. From Beijing to Manila, Philippines. Once wereached Manila, the following morning we would fly to Cebu.)

The woman did not say anything, only ushered us to another line where we talked to another woman behind the counter. She asked for our passports, and proceeded to ask us for our visas as well. She stated, “You needa visa to go to China.” We explained the same thing… “We don’t have them. Our travel agent didn’t tell us we need them. We are traveling to the Philippines, we have a 3 hour layover in China.We aren’t staying in China it’s only a layover.” I asked, “Isn’t there anything we can do? Do you mean to tell us that our whole trip for our family is offright now?” She stated “Sorry it’s their law.” She stood there for several minutes just looking at us as we talked amongst ourselves trying to figure outwhat to do. I started trying to call Air China (the airline we were taking fromSan Francisco to Manila, Philippines. It was 5am and I could not get a hold ofanyone from the airline or the travel agent. The woman just stood there waitingfor us to figure out a plan without offering any assistance. The only thing she said was we could try and fly to San Francisco and see if they could re-routeus somehow through another country.

Of course, this sounded like a long shot to us consideringthat these kind of trips take months of planning and we could not guaranteethat it would even work out. Not to mention the connecting flights that wouldnot work out once we got to the Philippines. After some time of talking out ouroptions, trying to get a hold of our family in the Philippines and trying toget a hold of anyone from the air lines or travel agency to help us with noluck, we were hopeless and decided to go back home. Our trip was off.

When I arrived home it was 7am and our flight would haveleft at 7:45am. I started making phone calls. After 7am I was able to get ahold of a representative from Air China. She told me that we did not need avisa to fly to China. There was a grace period for travelers with layoverswhere there was no visa needed. I looked at the clock only to see that ourflight would be leaving to San Francisco in the next 15 minutes. It was alittle to late for that information.

I immediately called United Airlines and explained what had happened. The representative I talked to argued with me saying that I did infact need a visa. After arguing, he said, “Give me a minute let me check onthat.” He came back after several minutes and said, “My apologies and so sorryfor your inconvenience, it is true that you do not need a visa if you arestaying in the airport for less than 24 hours.” We calmly told him that becauseof their mistake we had now missed our flight and needed them to make it right,by getting us to the Philippines by the next day or refunding us all of ourmoney. He put us on hold for a while and returned stating. “Don’t worry, wehave the exact same itinerary for you tomorrow. All you have to do is call AirChina and make sure it is set up on their end and everything went through.”

We were so grateful even though this totally messed up our travelarrangements, connecting flights etc. We were just happy to be going. However,as soon as we called Air China, they told us that there was only one spot available on their flight. Again we were devastated.
So again, we called United Airlines to talk with yet another person, tell the same story, and wait for them to put us on hold while theyfigured out a solution for us. After 5 hours total of being on the phone that morning, it ended with the United Airlines rep, telling us to file a complaint with Air China because they owned the tickets and that they would do an investigation and decide if we would get a refund or to go to the ticketing counter at the Airport to work it out. They would not help us any further.

Devastated, I made the call to the travel agent to try and cancel our flights so that hopefully we could at least get some of our money back. She helped us, but we paid $300 dollars each in cancelation fees. We also had tickets from Manila to Cebu and back for 4 people that were all non-refundable.We lost over $600 for those flights along with hotel accommodations for 4 people for 10 nights in the Philippines that we lost because of this error that United Airlines refuses to make right.

At the end of the story, our family trip, a once in a lifetime opportunity for all of us, was ruined. All of us had to pull major strings to work out a time where all of us could go together. We traveled from differentparts of the country on different dates only to find out that 4 of us would notbe meeting them there. We took time off of work and lost money and vacationdays. I will never get that experience back. Hopefully one day I will be ableto return and meet my family over there for the first time, but for now, I want this wrong to be made right.

I have never sued anyone, written a letter of complaint or spread the word to never go to a certain business, but I will do my best to tell any person I ever come across who is planning to travel, to never, everfly United Airlines.

-Sincerely,
[Name deleted by Moderator]

Nightmare from United Airlines
 

Sorry it is better to always be prepared. Bring print outs of visa requirements.

x1000. Sorry, you weren't prepared.

Maybe I am missing something here...

Why would United block your travel to SF since this was a
domestic flight and had nothing to do with the China portion?

In any case, United employees were obviously proceeding
based on misinformation... bad on them.

No one had the idea to check on line the visa requirements?

You should be prepared and had check it prior departing home, but you could also had check it during your discussion with the counter agent.

Nightmare from United Airlines
 

Busybody UA agents getting their noses in things that are none if their business, then disavowing all responsibility for the mess they make.

It's true that the smart thing is to know all the visa req in advance, but it's not unreasonable to expect you can transit a country without a visa (as in fact you can in china, although it's a fairly recent development(.

Which is ironic because the US does not allow people to transit without a visa (if one is normally required for a visit).

Probably because it wasn't a "regular" domestic flight, it was the first leg of an int'l flight, under the same PNR, and all flight procedures should start in PHX, not SFO.

True ^

What? Maybe she should bring her lawyer next time, too.

And we all know that TAs do not care about any paper you hand them when it comes to visa requirements. They have a system the look at and they won't deviate from it or they will face serious fines. It sounds like the PHX staff just didn't have much experience with that system and forgot to read (or couldn't find) the bit about a connection not needing a visa.

This sounds like UA's fault.

The agent was wrong.

No. Way. No common traveler is expected to have this preparation or knowledge if it is not expected of them. They bought a ticket to Phillipines, not China.


I had a similar experience flying within Schengen. I was denied boarding due to lack of Passport. I went to official government / EU / Schengen websites, but the gate agent steadfastly refused to accept or even *acknowledge* it. [She later grudgingly allowed boarding after clarifying with "management", and the airline issued apologies weeks afterwards].

No printed " proof" would have sufficed in that situation



Sorry about your situation. UA was wrong. They should make it right.

ginanellis, welcome to FlyerTalk!

As this is specific to United Airlines, please follow the thread as it moves to that airline's specific forum. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz and United.

They were prepared.

I sure hope this post was in jest, but if not, then this is ridiculous. Are you actually saying that United Airlines employees are so ignorant that customers need to be ready to educate them on various legal and other aspects of their jobs?

I guess we should all carry the complete set of FAA regs and United's internal policy manual as well. After all, who knows where the ignorance of the average United employee stops?

so, what's OP owed in this case? a full refund?


OP, if you haven't sent this letter yet to UA, please consider shortening it and making it less dramatic. there is a lot of unnecessary detail that really does not matter.

you could almost do this:

1) i bought tickets on united/air china from PHX to MNL transiting PVG under this PNR and this e ticket number
2) despite a clear TWOV policy (provide a link or a printout) i was IDB'd at PHX along with passenger A, B, C, D

what are the first 3 digits of your original ticket numbers? 016, or something else?

if 016, UA is responsible. in fact, i'd argue they are responsible anyways, since they were the operating carrier of the first flight.

Welcome to FT, and nothing you did was wrong. United was wrong, and they failed to correct the problem. They wrongly cancelled your tickets, and they owe you a check for all of your damages. What you need to do is file a complaint with the US Government. Attach your letter to UAL, ask they to look into the matter.

The link to file on the web (and address for paper) is here:

http://www.dot.gov/airconsumer/file-consumer-complaint

Complaints made to DOT get answered, and usually addressed by United quickly.

Good luck with the complaint to DOT, it should get results.

and P.S. You can also post your story on UALs facebook page. That usually gets a quick response!



I really don't know what to say...casual travelers gets messed over by United. United was (1) wrong, and (2) it was none of UALs business, and (3) United did not fix the problem. But who do you blame? The victim. China has allowed visa free transit for a few years, its well known, no reason to expect the world's biggest airline could not figure it out.

Really, really sad, response. And I guess passagners should bring a copy of the charts, a mechanic, and a flight manual too, in case United messes up on those?

Clearly when you were growing up (sic) no one every shared the wisdom of "there but by the grace of god go I"

See above, very sad that this is how you look at it.

Anticipating every mistake by United exceeds the ability of even the most seasoned traveler. But I am sure that you never get messed over by anyone, because you are perfect, right? Geeze.