jsloan

So what?

I don't understand how anyone can defend the GA here. A had already been accepted as a volunteer. One more was needed. If the GA didn't want to accept B & C together -- for whatever reason -- just say so, and continue to solicit single-traveler volunteers. But no UA agent should ever be tricking someone into giving up compensation, and I don't think anyone should be defending them for doing so.

If I were passenger B, I would have been livid, and I would have started with customer care and continued to write / call / etc. until I got the ETC.

joe_miami

I'm not defending the GA; just speculating on what happened.

I agree about "accept[ing] B & C together," if that's what they had attempted, but it seems like they made separate plays here — i.e., B went up, negotiated comp, and then C went up afterward and tried to score comp for a change C insisted he wanted to make anyway. That's where my "The GA probably thought B and C were playing games" theory originated.

After the GA revoked the comp, Passenger B presumably could have declined the change and boarded. The fact Passenger B didn't suggests B (and C) didn't mind overnighting and might have wanted to do so all along.

As bad as it looks for B here, this strikes me as a fairer outcome than the suggestion by someone else above that the GA should have revoked the comp for Passenger A after B and C decided to give up their seats. And it appears Passenger C screwed B even more than the GA, assuming C was, indeed, insisting he didn't want to fly without B.

Everything else aside, this is an interesting situation since it's not the GA's money and I've never heard a suggestion that such comp impacts GAs in the slightest way.

AugustusM

The GAs were all on the younger side but it was obvious, to me anyway, that B&C, while not on the same PNR, were traveling together to a mutual European destination and had the same itineraries. Their English was also not very good and I'm sure that played a role as well.

joe_miami

If they're foreigners, that makes me a little more sympathetic to them, although it's possible they're savvy flyers.

I still don't understand the last part of the story:

If C was only changing to ensure he flew with B, why did the GA instruct B to get back in line to board? Makes no sense.

txaggiemiles

That's the part that makes me wonder if the GA fully understood what they were asking to do.

You would have to be pretty bold, IMO, to blatantly mislead someone like this knowing you were going to take back compensation from passenger B. I think C was making a perfectly reasonable request and I find it completely reasonable for the GA to say "fine I will do that as a courtesy to you both, but you will not get compensated additionally for it"... but then to use that as a way around compensation for B takes on a new level of deceit.

AugustusM

The GA was saying that because C took a free VDB that they no longer needed B to VDB and that he was on the flight (technically he was never removed because the voucher remained unfinished with the amount). That's when B asked to VDB as well and fly the next day with C.

joe_miami

No, that's just it: According to your original post, C only wanted to VDB/change flights so that C could fly with B. If B was back on the original flight, then C would have been, too.

AugustusM

C was moved to the next day with no comp, B wasn't as he was filling out a voucher, once C was moved they called B back over and told him his services were no longer required. I'm fairly certain C was under the impression that B was moved which is why he was looking to join him. He kept saying, 'Put me on the flight he's getting' (paraphrasing).

joe_miami

Right, that's what makes no sense here. If C told the GA that he absolutely wanted/needed to fly with B, then it makes no sense that the GA would change C's flight and then tell B to board the original flight. Either there were different GAs involved or something is missing from the story.

threeoh

It sounds like one of two things happened:

(1) Gate Agent knowingly screwed these guys, by pulling a fast one

(2) Gate Agent didn't understand they were travelling together, or OP didn't understand what happened exactly, or the story has otherwise gotten muddled in its journey from the pax's interaction with the GA to this thread.

Based on my experiences with Gate Agents over the years, I'm going to guess it was #2 .

joe_miami

Right. If the GA was really this cutthroat, he or she would have told Passenger A that he wasn't needed and further saved United the $1,000 voucher. But that's not what happened, so it seems more likely that there's more to the story here vis-a-vis Pax B and C.

Flying Machine

AugustusM

Nothing missing. There were 4 people at the podium when this occurred. The one GA that was doing most of the talking, another who was adding her input to this and then the 4th was a supervisor who came over at the end and confirmed that there would be no comp for B and he could either get on the plane or fly the next day with C. I have no idea if they were intentionally scamming them or not but the end result was neither of them got on the plane and neither of them got a comp.

One thing I didn't mention earlier is the pilot came out twice to get them to start boarding as we had already been delayed and he was concerned about ATC issues at EWR. The second time the GA said that they were trying to 'sort this out' and then asked C to make up his mind what he wanted to do, that's when this all went down.

txaggiemiles

joe_miami

This makes it even more weird. Two GAs plus a supervisor heard Passenger C insist that he wanted/needed to travel with Passenger B, so they changed Passenger C's flight and then ... told Passenger B to board the original flight with no comp?

Unless there's an epidemic of short-term memory loss among United GAs at CVG, that makes no sense at all.