UK Stages

MX delay of 16.5 hours EWR ---> HKG, with an onward connection on CX that resulted in a misdirected bag (delivered three days later). GS traveling in paid polaris.

no proactive service recovery email. initial offer on website was $500. i usually take what they offer for MX, but i declined this offer and wrote in and pointed out a few, um, extenuating circumstances.

MX was initially announced as 45 minute delay... then crept beyond four hours until flight was finally canceled at just under five hours, because the crew would have gone "illegal" had they flown. they added a special section at 7 AM the next morning. the GS agent who rebooked me said had they made the decision earlier, they could have switched the crew... sent the HGK crew on the tel aviv flight (shorter flight time) and when the tel aviv crew arrived, they could have gone to HKG, assuming the MX was fixed. how true that is, i don't know, but it sounded plausible in the moment.

they did offer to get me out on cathay that night at 2 AM, but it would have meant a ten hour layover in HKG, in addition to an additional six hours in EWR. so i figured i was better off going home and getting at least a few hours sleep. by the time i left the airport, it was after 8 PM and i had been there since 12:30 pm. i pointed out that i had spent $230 for car service from the airport to my home and then back again the next morning. and i was out about $70 for underwear, socks and toiletries at my final destination due to the misdirected bag (although that may still be reimbursed by CX). UA did not retrieve the bags or re-tag them in EWR for the passengers taking the special section. that probably worked fine for those whose final destination was hong kong, but it likely caused confusion with the bags for connecting passengers.

the purser made an interesting choice on this flight... i can't say that it was right or wrong... but it was definitely a choice. because it was morning, we were told we would be served the pre-arrival "breakfast" meal after takeoff and the more substantial lunch service as the pre-arrival meal. i had ordered the fruit plate before we took off, with the understanding that it would be served fourteen or fifteen hours later as a pre-arrival meal. (the fruit plate is served with cereal, which i never eat; I just want the really big fruit plate, which on this flight, was uncharacteristically small and not very filling for a scheduled 16 hour flight.)

and then, much to everyone's surprise, they served ice cream sundaes right after the breakfast meal (but no cheese plates or other desserts).

most passengers in polaris were older than 8 years in age, so few wanted to eat ice cream at 9 AM. in any event, this decision caused a number of problems... there was very little food in the galley mid flight. since they no longer stock sandwiches or wraps, most of what you get these days is leftover cheese plates and mini desserts, of which there were none... because they hadn't served them yet. so, every time i went to the galley feeling a bit peckish, all i saw was - literally - an apple, an orange and two bags of pretzels and six or seven bags of gummy bears. much later in the flight, i was able to find a flight attendant and get a thimble full of tomato soup and a half grilled cheese sammy.

the other thing was that they did not adjust the timing of the pre-arrival meal, so they hastily and chaotically served the multi course lunch in about 30 minutes.

and, as is customary... the wifi did not work. i don't usually write in about that... it's par for the course. i don't count on it working and it rarely does. i usually just mention it in the surveys and submit separately for a refund... curiously, the payment screen somehow magically works... and after payment is processed, the wifi is dead. anyway, i don't usually write in about wifi, but i certainly mentioned it this time, along with everything else. it was truly the icing on the cake... or at least it would have been... had they served those little cakes.

i wrote in and explained all this and said i appreciated the goodwill gesture, but that if they really wanted to give me a $500 goodwill gesture, they should probably bump it up by two or three hundred dollars to reflect the costs i had already incurred, the lack of food and the non-functioning wifi. they responded with apologies and a $1000 voucher, which i thought was generous.

threeoh

Makes sense to me for a 7am flight.

I'm guessing they were worried that the ice cream, which I think is loaded with dry ice, would not last until the later meal.

This was poor planning, but once the crew is off-script and improvising it's easy to make these kinds of mistakes. I wonder if the timing in Y was better.

That's the highest voucher I've seen on this thread (except for compulsory compensation). I'm guessing they were attempting to cover your ground costs plus the $500.

lincolnjkc

Curious if the hive mind thinks this is worth writing in about or just suck it up:

Flying YUL-IAD-ORD-CLE today because at the time I booked it that itinerary was the option that had seats available that would get me home at a reasonable hour without having to wake up too early or endure a CR2 at any point on the journey. Got a notice about weather in ORD late last night and looked at other options -- there were none with seats available and all 3 segments were on time.

Landing in IAD I looked and ORD-CLE was still showing on time but the inbound aircraft (SJC-ORD) was showing delayed due to maintenance -- at that time arriving an hour after the scheduled departure of ORD-CLE. I stopped by the IAD UC and asked about options (nonstop or via any other hub); he had nothing with seats available but protected me in Y on UA702, the next ORD-CLE. As of pushing off the gate in IAD 1850 was still on time.

By the time we landed in Chicago 702 had canceled (weather), and 1850 was still waiting on the same aircraft from SJC which kept getting pushed out. At the ORD UC they called ops to see about the likelihood of an aircraft swap, got a non-committal answer and told me to check back in about 45 minutes. In the meantime all other ORD-CLEs today and tomorrow had either canceled or booked full. After about 45 minutes and needing to be back home to pack for a trip departing tomorrow (but on AA because a client's TA booked it and complicating things a bit) I had the UC cancel me off of 1850, booked a rental with Hertz and drove from ORD to home and I'll return the car to CLE tomorrow on my way back out of town.

I got home at 10:25 PM. The aircraft didn't leave the ground until 10:45 and is estimated to arrive 6 hours 25 minutes late -- again, despite weather in ORD the root cause was maintenance (it seems followed by crew scheduling). Still don't have my bag but figuring it will show up when it shows up (and ORD baggage service processed the delayed bag claim)

I'm certainly not expecting UA to pick up the $450 rental car tab but given the 4+ hour delay is anything warranted as a gesture?

jjmoore

I would send a note to customer care describing the situation, and attach a copy of your rental car receipt. I would think that UA would either reimburse your rental car, or at the very least give you a travel voucher to cover that cost and some extra for the inconvenience. If you do this, please report back on the result.

joe_miami

~$600 for a 6-hour delay? That seems highly optimistic.

(Also, $450 for a two-day, 325-mile rental car trip? Looks like a lot of other people had booked last-minute rental cars.)

lincolnjkc

Given that it was a full-fare ticket while $600 is way more than I think they'd issue (my crystal ball is figuring $200-$300 is optimistic) its a fraction (well less than 50% of what was paid for the ticket.

It's a 24 hour rental and actually "only" $439.50 including the fuel -- but yeah, Hertz online booking was sparse (only 3-4 categories actually had cars available, I chose the cheapest that wasn't a Chevy Spark. Based on what I heard in the UC at least two other people on my flight alone had bailed, and given the number of WX cancellations I'm not surprised. One of the UC agents told me to make sure I could actually book a car because someone else had told her no cars were available. By contrast, the actual Hertz lot had plenty of cars available and thanks to Ultimate Choice I drove off with a Cadillac XTS instead of an Impala. Still a miserable drive through nasty rain the entire way, but at least a comfortable miserable drive.

onthesam

They might pick up the rental and more. I'd give it a shot and attach the receipts to a nice email note.

jsloan

At one point, Hertz had a hybrid ownership model for cars; some cars were locally owned and not available for one-way rental. In the era of Gold Choice / Ultimate Choice, I assume that's no longer true, but they likely still have capacity restrictions on one-way travel.

That said, one of the many advantages of National Emerald Club is that free rental days -- earned one per seven rentals for general members, and more frequently with status -- can be used for one-way travel. I generally try to keep one or two free days available for situations like this. (They also offer One-Two-Free -- get a free rental coupon every second rental during fall/winter -- which stacks with the free rental day earnings). They might be worth looking into for future rental business.

lincolnjkc

I sent a note to the 1K desk -- we'll see what if anything comes out of it. With my luck they'll try calling me when I'm in flight again.

I suspect it may still be partially true and may be part of the reason why many locations haven't gone to or are more slowly going to Gold/Ultimate Choice, e.g. franchise locations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsloan

That said, one of the many advantages of National Emerald Club is that free rental days -- earned one per seven rentals for general members, and more frequently with status -- can be used for one-way travel. I generally try to keep one or two free days available for situations like this. (They also offer One-Two-Free -- get a free rental coupon every second rental during fall/winter -- which stacks with the free rental day earnings). They might be worth looking into for future rental business.

I have more than enough gold pesos (or whatever they're called) to pull off a "free" rental of anything Hertz rents for 2+ weeks based on their award chart and still have points left over -- but for some reason when I was trying to book last night even selecting the "use my points" it was only offering cash rates -- not sure if there's a close in booking limitation, capacity controls, or just a weird bug I tripped across in two different browsers. At the end of the day, if UA doesn't do something it's just getting written off as a business expense so just a little skin off my knuckle and none of my back to have paid for it.

I am curious though so may poke at Emerald Club -- if for no other reason than I'm doing enough renting that divvying my renting may make sense. Does a "free" EC rental still have all of the taxes/fees/surcharges tacked on like a Hertz rental does?

HkCaGu

UA GUM-HKG-GUM is normally a -700, but for the UA Guam Marathon, they scheduled a -800 and Fri night HKG-GUM was sold out. Problem is, whatever mechanical needs they subbed a -700 to fly that night, resulting in 40 IDBs.
A runner friend was among the 40 who were first offered next night's flight, which would not get in until the event's start time, and was then offered HX HKG-NRT then UA NRT-GUM, making a <5 h journey >15 h.
I researched: no legal requirements for any IDB comp. Not for non-US/Can origins. After writing in, US$500 cert. Possibly useful for a nearly-free trip to run next year.

garykung

Actually, GUM-HKG-GUM (UA 159/116) has been up-gauged for some times from 73G to 738, even the booking information says 73G.

Where did your friend start and end the trip?

HkCaGu

I have a free account and can see 3 months at https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL116/history and only a few flights around CNY were upgraded to 738. (I guess they can stuff the 73G to Japan or MNL.) Also, as of 1st week of April they've reduced 6/week back to 4/week. They definitely sold the Marathon-related HKG flight as 738. Many more runners are from Japan but they have a lot more frequencies and 73G can handle. (NRT market is so bad, all 3 flights are still 738. No 772 at all.)

HKG-GUM-HKG round trip. UA Vacations HK marketed the marathon quite a bit.

jsloan

garykung

Don't know that UA scaled back from 6 to 4 per week. In that case, it will be mostly 73G. Back to normal.

My first thought about the 6/week was increased demand...but apparently not true.

I noticed about the UA Vacations packages.

Yes - it is bad that UA does not have to adhere Part 250 for ex-HKG passengers.

But what did UA offer at that time?

WineCountryUA

If there are no overriding local laws, UA follows it CoC which is the same as DoT rules which exempt changes to smaller aircraft (" substitution of equipment of lesser capacity when required by operational or safety reasons; ")