qmacker

I had an award flight from ORD-DUB via BRU on May 30th last, which ended up getting horribly messed up and bags lost.

It started slightly badly a week or two prior, as I live in San Francisco and originally my award flight was DUB-SFO non-stop on EI metal, but because there was an Aer Lingus strike planned for Friday the 30th, I decided to be proactive and change my flight in advance. (I had to go to Chicago that week for business anyway, so I paid the $75 change fee and made my award departure flight from ORD instead. (My company paid for the SFO-ORD flight, which I took earlier in the week.))

Anyway, getting to the point, I took UA972 from ORD-BRU. Bag was through-checked to DUB. The layover time in BRU was 1 hour. We were about 35 mins late departing ORD, and we did not make up the time on the way. We pulled into the gate at about 09:40. The flight to Dublin was at the gate beside us, and I could see the Aer Lingus plane already parked there, ready to depart at 10:05. I knew I would have to clear immigration first though (and redo security) so I knew it would be tight.

Long story short, I got to the gate with about 10 minutes to spare, and they were about half-way through boarding the flight to Dublin. I thought, "Great! I've made it!" Unfortunately, I only had one of those “THIS IS NOT A BOARDING PASS” boarding passes, and the Swissport handling agent (who was about to give me a boarding pass) informed me that United had cancelled me off the flight, "because they didn't think I'd make the connection." She got on the phone with someone, but they wouldn't reinstate me. That was a pretty awful moment. I stood there looking at everyone boarding, and the plane departing. I knew my dad was waiting for me in Dublin and I wouldn't see him in about an hour as planned. I made a point of asking the girl who’s decision it was to cancel me from that flight. She told me it was United’s decision.

I had to go all the way back out to the main part of the airport. I went to the “United desk" where another Swissport agent booked me BRU-AMS at 15:00 and on from AMS-DUB at 20:30, arriving DUB 21:10! she gave me a lousy 9 Euro voucher for food which I never used.

I made the best of it and took a train into Brussels and hung around the Grand Place for a while and did a bit of sightseeing. Came back, flew to AMS, and a friend picked me up in Schiphol and we hung out for a few more hours in her little town. I eventually made it to Dublin at 9:30 or so that night, and my bag didn't show up!

Another fiasco began with the bag. To make that story short, the bag never went to AMS with me, but instead got sent back to Chicago. It eventually arrived in Dublin on Tuesday or Wednesday. I had left Chicago on Friday. Crazy!

Anyway, my question here: is it even worth my while bothering to complain about all of this? It's taken me a while just to write this story out here - is it worth jumping through all the hoops with United? For what? It's not like they're going to give me a free transatlantic flight or something, is it? Ha ha ha.

A couple of other gripes: what's with this "THIS IS NOT A BOARDING CARD" pseudo boarding cards they give out these days? I kind of have memories of always getting boarding passes for onward connections in the old days. Did that go away? Granted, I’ve only started flying internationally with United in the last three or four years, and it seems that nobody else’s system can talk to theirs or vice-versa. On the way back DUB-FRA-SFO I had to go a desk in FRA to pickup a boarding pass for the FRA-SFO leg on United (came in from DUB with LH but they couldn't issue me a boarding pass for the SFO leg in Dublin). I remember when flying with BA or VS via LHR, EI would always be able to give me a boarding pass for the LHR-SFO leg – in Dublin.

United also didn't have me down for a vegetarian option on the FRA-SFO flight. I asked the attendant, do I have to call up on the phone for EVERY flight to make sure they have me down for vegetarian, even t5hoguh it's in my United profile? She said she didn’t know.

So, do I complain or waste of time?

IAH-OIL-TRASH

The pasta is considered the vegetarian option.

Not all destinations/carriers/transit points get you all the boarding cards up front (eg transits at Narita). This is nothing new. I'm wondering if what really happened is that you failed to get the new boarding card and Brussels assumed you were not going to make the flight. UA is pretty much out of the picture once you boarded at ORD. The "UA cancelled the ticket" seems to be odd in this case.

JVPhoto

Isn't the problem with the bag that you never picked it up at BRU and re-checked it with your new flights? If they were canceling your ticket to end at BRU coming from ORD wouldn't the system have then kicked it out at BRU even if it was originally tagged through to DUB?

transportprof

In the time that it took you to compose your thoughts for this FT thread, you could type up a much shorter account of your travails and UA will probably throw a $100 travel credit your way. Or you might get around 5,000 miles.

I'm curious whether you ever checked up on your original EI flight? Did it operate? Most of the time I make proactive changes to my travel plans trying to second guess weather/strikes/ or other risks, I wind up regretting it. I changed a flight through ORD to a DEN cnx in January to avoid a blizzard and wound up arriving three hours later at the final destination than the cnx through ORD, even with the blizzard. Pilot never showed up for the DEN cnx and we waited three hours for a replacement. I'm learning not to second guess the unknown.

eghansen

A few thoughts:

I think that the Swissport agent in Brussels simply lied or did not know what she was talking about. United couldn't have cared less whether or not you made your connection to another carrier and wouldn't have touched your reservation. It also appears since she could not reinstate you on the flight that it was oversold. Canceling the expected misconnects frees up seats to avoid the oversell.

Since you were not issued a boarding pass for the EI flight in ORD, they could consider you to have missed the cutoff time for presenting yourself at the gate which is usually 30 minutes or more. Thus, they could cancel your reservation without any responsibility for compensation.

Technically, you have very little to complain about. From EI's point of view, you missed the cuttoff time to get a boarding pass, so they had the right to deny you boarding. UA protected you on another flight to Dublin and gave you a meal voucher, so they did what was required of them. Your bag got lost, but was brought to you in DUB. The fact that you had to recheck in FRA for a boarding pass is nothing to complain about at all. You did not miss your SFO flight or anything else because of it. The lack of a special vegetarian meal is also nothing that is going to go anywhere.

Compared to other horror stories (see post today on family denied boarding in PHX for flight to Philippines because they did not have a visa for Air China connection that was not required), yours is truly much ado about nothing.

As a side note, I have noticed that united.com sometimes books very short connections, such as 30 minutes in IAH. Given the massive size of the IAH terminals, particularly from north C to southeast E, 30 minutes seems quite short.

johnmont

I feel for ya...

This is another example of how flying can be way more complex than it needs to be for the average person. It isn't easy to navigate, even for seasoned travelers. Many (not all) Flyer Talk posters are quick to blame passengers for not knowing more, but the reality is that flying can be anything but easy and straightforward. I learn something new about some obscure fact/rule several times a year...

We're the ones who let them get away with it.

We shouldn't.

Complain. Definitely complain.

zrs70

In September, 2001 (a week before 9/11 - but that's not really relevant), we were flying ARN-LHR (on SK), LHR-JFK-LAX(on UA). One ticket, 1:30 connection in LHR. UA segments were upgraded with paper SWU's, expiring that same month.

UA/*A were really advertising through check in, etc. But upgrades always would cause a snag.

Anyway, our LHR arrival was delayed, and we had under an hour for the connection. A UA rep met us at the gate and whisked us through security and to the UA staffed transfer desk.

The agent refused boarding as we were there after cut off. He began to try to charge us when looking at alternative flights.

I stood my ground. I asked if the flight was overbooked, and he affirmed.

After some negotiation, we were rebooked in full C on the NS to SFO (MUCH better than the JFK connection with the pre PS 767-200 C class on the domestic portion. To boot, he issued to additional SWU's expiring a year later.

No, we weren't able to use the SWU's to upgrade to F!

qmacker

@IAH-OIL-TRASH: I never had an opportunity to get a new boarding pass. As soon as I saw the "THIS IS NOT A BOARDING PASS" card in Chicago, I drew the United agents attention to it, and he said, "Oh, just go straight to the gate in Brussels." I thought it sounded a bit sketchy, but I didn't want to argue.

@JVPhoto: The agent at the United desk in the Departure terminal in BRU who re-booked me said not to worry about the bag, that it would be checked through. I did ask (and I did half-wonder if it was sitting back there on the carousel somewhere before customs).

@transportprof: I guess I'll just copy and paste my story and send it to United and see if they will do anything. On the original EI flight: It did not fly and the strike went ahead on the 30th. I was tracking the strike in the news pretty regularly, and I have a friend who is a former UA pilot married to a former EI FA and they were both fairly sure it go ahead. I was very leery about making the change, but it was getting close to the time and I was fairly sure the strike would go ahead. Interestingly, UA had no idea about the flight until very close to the date, and so would not change it for free, but that's okay.

@eghansen: I take your points and pretty much agree with them all. I'm not that annoyed about the whole episode. I was initially pretty bummed when they denied me boarding, but I was in Europe, I'm from there, I had friends I could meet...so I made the best of it. I'm really just putting the story out there. God help those poor people going to the Philippines.

@johnmont: Thanks for the kind words. I've actually been flying SFO-DUB 2-3 times a year since 1992. You're right, it can be way more complex than it needs to be. One small thing can have a big knock-on effect. I consider myself fairly experienced, but still things happen that surprise me. I was surprised in FRA on the way back: it was not at all clear when one arrived, where you were supposed to go to get a boarding pass. The United/LH section near Gate/Area 13 seems a bit disorganized.

Thanks for all your answers and ideas. This is a great forum. Ultimately for me, the best solution is a non-stop flight, if possible. I was on the inaugural EI SFO-DUB flight. It means a lot to me having that flight available. Another good rule is if you have to connect, do it somewhere that has a lot of flights each day to where you want to go. Had it been Heathrow, not BRU, I would have had many more choices - they pretty much go every hour to Dublin from there. However, it was an award flight, a last minute change, and it was all that was available. We live and learn.

Thank you all. :-)