2358

First time poster, long time lurker so don't be too hard on me!

After over 1m miles, I finally missed my connection home! Usually I build in a 3 hour connection to ensure I don't miss my plane back to London, but couldn't this time. I generally get so fed up waiting in the lounge for 3 hours, that I thought I could take the chance!

Unfortunately not! Anyway, my question is, what does United have to do?

The $7 for food is an insult, and I was offered a voucher for a motel at the airport which I declined.

But more importantly, I booked a specific flight because it had the plane I wanted to fly on, and the seat I wanted was available. I am rebooked on a flight 24 hours later, in a seat by the toilet (only one left). I would not have paid for BF if I knew that would be the seat I would get. I could have arrived back a few (less than 5) hours earlier if I had either risked a connection, or taken a middle.

I realise that United is only obliged to get me from A to B - is that it?

To add insult to injury, there was a United person who met my delayed inbound flight to say that various planes had been held so people needed to run for them - when I asked about the London flight he just said - that's gone, I can't do anything for you.

channa

Welcome to FlyerTalk.

First, you did not miss your flight. You missed your connection.

If you're in paid BF, and there is a better routing to London on UA or another carrier in Business, UA should book you on it if you request.

XCstud

If you have the app on your phone or a computer, you can watch the seat map and see if any seats open up and change seats if they do.

TennisNoob

Welcome to FT!

I'm surprised as far as how you've flown 1M+ miles and you haven't encountered anything like this yet on UA...........

I would take Channa's advise and try a different carrier if avail.
Other than that, unfortunately you are SOL

kettle1

OP: Welcome to FT.

Look for other options, than call UA. What hotel did UA put you up in? I would be upset. If you are paid BC, UA should put you on the next flt. Period. Not UA metal. The next flt in BC, on any carrier. If not paid BC, that is another story. EWR is beautiful this time of year. Think of it as a mini-holiday in EWR.

If paid BC. DEMAND the next flt in BC on the next carrier out in BC. (C)

Next time take BA or VS. It is worth moving on with the UA love affair with this garbage airport and current airline. Move on, and good luck!

Happy travels, mate. ^

lhrsfo

If you generally fly paid Business Class, you will probably find BA Exec Club to be a very attractive program. Paid Economy is a very different matter.

2358

It was precisely because I had this happen once too often on BA I switched to United!

UA claiming (app confirms) next flights all full in BF. So they can only get me back a day late. Or a few hours earlier ( but still following day) in coach.

Paid for a BF seat with $$$!

I guess I was taken aback by the complete lack of sympathy from United.

Can I demand GF? Does EU compensation apply?

PTahCha

But did you ask to put on another carrier same day? Or connect you through another gateway city?

You can ask for GF. However, it'll have to be the last seat available (no business class) before they'll put you in there.

Also, EU compensation does not apply in this case because this is a US carrier originated outside of the US.

Lastly - not sure if you knew about the flight delay during the first leg, but may have been easier to resolve at origin instead of misconnecting.

ClaraM

Is this true that if I pay business they have to fly me on another carrier? 2 weeks ago, I was supposed to fly IAD-EWR-HKG, in paid BF. The flight to EWR was on a regional with no 1st class. That flight was delayed almost 3 hours, causing a mis-connect. "Elite line" agent told me they would fly me to Dubai in business, then put me in economy on emirates from Dubau to HKG. The argument was because only my longest segment was in biz, I was on a "mixed" ticket, so they wouldn't put me in biz all the way, only for the longest segment. I repeatedly said that the only reason it was mixed was because there was no first on my domestic leg. I got put on hold twice and told that even if they booked me in biz, emirates would "turn me away at the gate." The only other offering was a f'd up routing IAD-Somewhere-Tokyo on United biz and then the NRT-HKG segment in economy on air china or something. I sent him away to his supervisor and he would go away, and then come back and say they said no, there were only certain airlines that they could put me on, the others would turn me away, and I couldn't take the cathay flight, for example, that I wanted to take. The "airline" wouldn't let him. Anyway, after literally an hour with the double connect the only thing he offered, I gave up and called my TA. She got me on another flight that had also been delayed, so left only 10 minutes before my original flight, and made my connection. Should I have just HUACA? It was an 8k$ paid ticket, and I was shocked they refused to work
With me (and that he didn't see the delayed flight that I ended up on). Is he full of $&!@ to say they wouldn't book me on another carrier's biz class? What should I have said? Was it like the car salesman and be didn't really talk to a supervisor?

Steve M

Did you consider rebooking yourself? I see that CX has a walk-up fare NYC-HKG in Business that's less than $8000. You might have been able to cancel the remaining segments of your UA ticket and gotten a refund of the amount less the used segment IAD-EWR (how much could that be?) or perhaps turn it into a IAD-EWR rt.

MSPeconomist

I think OP rebooked from IAD, not EWR, when it became clear that the RJ flight was going to be badly delayed. From IAD, there is a choice of many carriers, probably more airlines than have international nonstops from EWR, although EWR would allow at least next day flights from JFK.

Assuming that the $8000 ticket is RT in business class, it's not a super-cheap fare, but it's not full fare business class either, at least not compared to the fares I see for my routes and carriers. I hope the travel agent was clear about any costs that could be involved in rebooking directly rather than doing this through UA.

ADDED: The argument about the mixed fare ticket should have been to have the agent look at the way the fare was constructed, not just the booking classes for the flights on the reservation. I suspect that the OP had a through fare in business class rather than a broken fare with a separate fare component for the IAD-EWR RJ.

channa

Yes, it's very costly for UA to book people on other carriers, particularly in premium cabins, that agents will say whatever to deny it -- like that ridiculous logic you were given about your "mixed" ticket (it was not, it was a business class ticket).

I was given similar resistance, and it took some prodding and several agents to get one of my rebookings recently where UA was full, but AA had space.

A buddy of mine had a similar situation, where a Paid J ticket went south, and they got him on AF, but the line he got was they only have a coach agreement with AF. He ultimately got another agent to do it, but they clearly are under some pressure not to do this, that they'll say anything to not do it.

Staymates788

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but just because you pay cash for a premium cabin does not mean you are entitled to the same cabin during irops. It all depends on the fare class and how your fare is actually broken down. If you pay for a deep discounted premium seat, you may really be paying for a full fare economy ticket with an instant upgrade. This screws you during irops because the carrier is only required to provide you with the fare that you paid for; in a discount premium cabin this may be an economy seat in reality.

rkflyshigh

United is one of very few airlines to pay for you to fly on other airlines if a connection is missed. You should ask at a United information desk

exerda

Yes. HUACA, sadly enough.

The "mixed ticket" excuse was complete and utter crap.


I think you'd have good grounds for complaint to the DOT for "bait & switch" in that case. Yes, some agents at UA try to claim that the -UP/UPDI fares aren't premium cabin fares but are instead Y fares with an upgrade. They're wrong in the vast majority of cases. For Y/B/M fares with an "instant upgrade" on a restricted availability basis, they're correct, but these fares are not marketed by UA as first/business fares.

The -UP/UPDI fares are marketed as premium cabin fares. You do a search on UA.bomb for first or business class and these fares come back. They don't have a notice saying, "This is an economy fare with an upgrade," and they don't provide a way to filter and get only "true" premium fares.

Of course, if the premium cabin is full on the next flight or flights, they can offer to put you in Y, and you can take that offer (and get whatever refund they offer). But if there's any premium cabin available--even if they're only selling it at full fare--they need to put you in that seat. And if it requires another airline's metal, they need to put you on that other airline assuming there's an interlining agreement in place to do so.