ont

Would have been pointless to ask for a refund. UA would have deducted last minute walk-up A/F for SFO-ORD out of the sum OP paid.

My suggestion is to avoid UA - it seems that the airline has been smiseked to the ground and you won't be able to get consistently good service for a while. Contrary to what Often1 said, things are not nearly as bad on AA and DL - at least there are fewer completely outrageous incidents like yours.

You can try small claims court. They shouldn't/wouldn't be able to use a lawyer. And if you have your incident documented, you might get a judgment in your favor.

Also, if you fly on full-fare business class tickets, may I suggest LH? You'd be treated a lot better there. Despite allowing mentally unstable pilots fly their LCC subsidiaries (see the recent Germanwings incident), LH continues to be an overall more reliable carrier than UA.

tom911

Take it you haven't been following the almost-monthly pilot strikes and just last week's flight attendant flight at Lufthansa? I've avoided flying Lufthansa around Europe this year and have moved over to competitors. Not the best connections, but a much better chance of knowing I won't be impacted by labor issues.

ont

International flights seem to be less affected by that.

Also, based on flightstats, it seems that LH still has much smaller delays than UA even despite the problems you've mentioned.

http://www.flightstats.com/go/Flight...(LH)+Lufthansa

http://www.flightstats.com/go/Flight...ne=(UA)+United

Flyer1M

Speak with you wallet. If we continue to accept the poor service United provides they will continue to see how low they can take it. Next time take your business elsewhere.

mduell

None of which has anything to do with the OP being (not) bumped off the flight.

No. I don't think even the top 1% most frequent passengers read and understand the CoC based on the posts here. But it is what the passenger agreed to and what a confirmed ticket means.

Hard to recommend LH for business travel given their inability to deliver in the last year.

Perhaps AF if your route has their new J product.

EmailKid

Isn't Aer Lingus getting a new Biz product?

LeonS

Probably true.

I started flying a lot this year with my new job, and I was excited because I just reached Gold status with an airline for the first time of my life.

(Furthermore, UA has the most direct flights out of SFO, and oftentimes also the cheapest -that my company requires us to book-; not sure how easy it'll be to avoid)

I will do some research to see whether another airline will match my Gold status to make the transition.



Note: I am flying back to SFO via ZRH (on LX) in a few days. Looking forward to that at least.

Aussienarelle

Wow! I have been on many UA flights that have been cancelled, as well as flying on many different airlines for the past 30 years. I always thought the attitude of the airlines was to keep the inconvenience factor to the impacted flight as it results in less disgruntled/unhappy customers. I am a lowly 1K member (never attained GS and unlikely to attain), and have a dreadful track record with UA for delayed and cancelled flights. Even when I have had full business class airfares, if it were my flight that had been impacted it was then my choice to wait for the next business class seat available or catch the next available class in economy - I generally take the economy option, but I would be livid if my flight had not been delayed/cancelled and I was asked to take the economy seat. Interestingly enough my last cancelled flight was out of LHR due to a mechanical issue (always grateful they do not fly a plane with a mechanical issue) so we were all rebooked on a separate plane the next day (they flew a plane from the USA so there were then two flights with the same flight number leaving on the same day). But UA got it so wrong - as after telling everyone we would have the same seats apparently the system would not allow them to do this so seats were shuffled around and there were some very upset people who lost their upgraded seat, and some very happy people who then got the upgrade. I was still in BF, but that poor crew had a hard time of it on the flight back.

As for rebooking on different airlines, I was flying SAN-SFO-FRA-BLR in paid business class, and due to a weather delay they could not get me SAN-SFO, so wanted to reroute me on UA through the East Coast to FRA, but would miss my connecting flight FRA-BLR and wanted me to overnight. Not acceptable as I needed to be at a business meeting. But there was a LH flight LAX-LHR, but UA did not want to put me on that flight as they would lose the revenue for the flight. Fortunately the check-in agent argued with them for me, over the phone, and got me rerouted on LH but it took 30 minutes of them looking for any UA flight they could get me on rather than putting me on the LH flight.

So with four minutes, not sure they would have agreed to put OP on a different airline as they do not like to lose revenue, especially business class revenue.

Read that post about being removed for the GS member, and now this. Really hope UA rethinks this path they are going down....or perhaps they have gone past the point of no return.

EmailKid

If your employer pays for Biz, no need to have status. Most all airlines give most of those benefits when traveling in premium cabins @:-)

findark

One thing that surprises me here is the notion that UA can downgrade pax on paid J/F tickets at will. I don't know the CoC well, but shouldn't there be some provision that if you are buying a J/F ticket the contract is to accommodate you in that cabin? OP says the manager said a rebooking to the next day's flight would be voluntary, and that seems wrong (at least to me, as a reasonable person). If a pax can't or won't fly in Y for whatever reason, pays for J, and UA refuses to accommodate them in J, seems like that should be an IDB. What if the pax claims nebulous medical conditions prevent them from traveling in Y? Or are the DOT IDB rules just not written to protect premium cabin pax?

mduell

No. No airline in their right mind would ever agree to such a contract.

Well it's not, per DOT and UA policy. It's a downgrade, and downgrade comp applies, not IDB comp.

What if the pax claims they're an alien? What if the pax is an alien?

The IDB comp rules are written to protect denied boardings. Downgrades are not, and have not been, denied boardings.

ont

If you're flying on business, just book UA codeshare on a *A partner, and credit to MileageMinus, which is still a generous program, relatively speaking. As long as you book through UA, you should be able to meet PQD req, and you can undoubtedly make four segments on UA annually. You can still use UA for leisure travel, which is not time-sensitive.

gaobest

Sorry to OP for such a painful experience. Totally blah. Such rude treatment for any passenger.
I was *G for years and am Silver (no paid segments this year, just an award ticket for a 2-day wedding trip) now; will be GM next year as I still get Chase miles.
I'm only flying paid F or premium economy out of SFO with other airlines. I've loved flying out of T2, which is much more peaceful than United's T3 at SFO. Next year I'll try HA for Maui.
If you can fly intl flights in paid C, then maybe you can fly Ual partners if you need to fly Ual for work. Or maybe tell your work travel staff about your experience and see if you can get a waiver away from Ual.
Good luck and hope lx C goes great. And next time you have to fly SFO/dub on United, see if your work will allow SFO-LHR-dub or SFO-fra-dub. It's just Better to fly out of SFO international than to connect in another USA into airport.

ftweb

Could it actually be worse than this, because it's the fare difference between paid C and a mixed-cabin itinerary? The one time I got downgraded, I was shocked at the amount (maybe a few hundred dollars, I can't remember). The problem is that I'd already flown my first segment in United's crappy domestic first product. The segment I actually cared about was the transatlantic segment that followed. So I was essentially forced to buy UA's lousy, overpriced domestic F product for no reason.

That said, on another occasion when I had irrops and was unsatisfied by UA's rerouting (because I would miss my meeting anyway), I refused the new route mid-itinerary, was flown home free, and received a full refund of my non-refundable ticket. Of course, paying $0 for a lost day still sucks, but a small silver lining is that I got to keep the PQM for the useless segments I did fly (and didn't pay for).

So I wonder if one could refuse a downgrade, claim the rerouting is a trip in vain, and then get flown home (in C) with a full refund?

Tchiowa

Back in the 90s I got shafted on an award ticket (TWA) that I had issued on PAL. They stranded me in Taipei for 1 1/2 days and made me miss connections in Manila to the Cebu Express. Ended up with less than a day in Cebu where I had planned on 3.

When I got home and PAL wouldn't take care of me, I took them to Small Claims in SF. I told the judge I was in Business Class and wanted a Business Class ticket SFO/CEB/SFO so I could take the vacation they took away from me. He was sympathetic judge and ordered to them to pay me the full fare business class ticket price. He couldn't order them to fly me for free (Small Claims can only award cash).

Not saying you'd win. But I did. One that *1* occasion.