TominLazybrook

I'm not a happy customer of UA. That being said, the lady was ripped off by her travel agent. I don't see how this was UA's fault. Why would anyone use a third party provider anyway? Only times I use one is when its some odd international airline which I physically cannot purchase the ticket otherwise (last time I did that, it was some Ukrainian airline that basically didn't take US credit cards - so I used Orbitz or Cheapoair - which would actually let me buy a ticket - any ticket - on that airline). or if I'm doing a multistep trip and they somehow have an otherwise unaccessible fare (very rare).

The last time I bought tickets through a third party website for travel on UA, it was a nightmare. Part of that was UA's fault, but most of it was that the third party vendor was just unable to fix what they needed to fix.

COSPILOT

This OTA seems to have hundreds of accusations of problems, with no response that I could see to any negative comment. I feel for the lady and what happened to her personally, but asking UA to fly her for free after the OTA cancelled payment, hoping to work it out afterwards isn't something I would do either. The lesson is choosing who you buy from, of which UA is also a victim. Offering to buy a ticket minutes before the airplane departs to mitigate the previous mistake also strikes me as odd. If I did this in the below example, no dealership would allow me to take the vehicle, period.

If I used a third party with questionable background to act as my buyer for a new car, should the dealership let me take delivery even though the check bounced, or was canceled, just as I was being handed the keys? It doesn't matter if I needed the car for a job interview, to attend a funeral, try and meet with a parent before they pass away.

kss5555

Story now on front page of foxnews.com http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2018/01/28/united-removed-woman-from-flight-to-see-her-dying-mother-nobody-flies-for-free.html

vsevolod4

Bingo!!!!
It's an unfortunate circumstance that the TA cancelled the ticket after the person boarded ... had it been earlier, then there would have been time to fix the problem.
All the rest of the article about the dying mother is sad but melodrama distracting from the main point.

vsevolod4

A better headline would be "Travel Agency cancels ticket, causing woman to miss seeing her dying mother." ... but immediately it's all about United, as a whipping boy. Now United has its share of problems as anyone reading FT knows well.

Some headlines are fallacious ... "United cancels ticket of woman trying to see her dying mother" says Yahoo! ...
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/unit...215717599.html

Interesting to see some websites like this one where people have vented: https://traveler-helpdesk.pissedconsumer.com/

s0ssos

Up til when can you cancel a ticket? Can you cancel a ticket after the person boarded? Have you ever done that?
Maybe after the person has flown, but before they landed? Maybe before they collect their bags?

It doesn't make any sense. As in this whole idea of "boarding" discussed with the Dr. Dao incident.

docbert

Although it is somewhat semantics, I suspect this ticket wasn't actually "cancelled", but more likely "voided".

Cancelling would have had implications around things like cancel/change fees, whilst voiding the ticket (which would have been possible if it was booked the day prior which based on the story it probably was) avoid all of that.

My understanding is that UA didn't allow you to cancel a ticket whilst you are checked in - but it's certainly possibly the system acts differently when voiding a ticket and that might be what led to the issue.

malgudi

All the bad press couldn't have happened to a nicer airline.

Along with the stock plummeting after recent earnings report!

Mountain Explorer

Travel agency made the first mistake, but:

At the moment of truth, on the airplane, the travel agency wasn't present. There were only 2 parties present

1) A very distraught passenger, asking for mercy, offering to buy a new ticket or whatever else it would take to stay on the plane.
2) A gate agent, showing no sympathy and saying that they would "reopen in the morning" despite the fact the passenger's mom would be dead by that time.

Party #2 screwed up. There are ways they could have allowed her to stay on the plane. That's the human thing to do. In fact, United policy says that they don't forcibly remove passengers that have already boarded.

BF263533

In 1994 had like three consecutive cancellations at EWR to PIT when my father was dying. They flew the last flight of the day which they put me on, Cut back on Continental flying for several years after that.

1kprem

cjermain

A bit off topic, but I notice that the sentiment here seems to be that one should never buy UA tickets from a third party website.

While I'd never buy from some random site, very occasionally over the years I've been able to save a LOT of money by going with one of the standard OTAs rather than booking directly with United (at least using the United.com online booking engine). To be honest, I'm not sure I've purchased a UA ticket from someone else in the last year or even two. But if I were to book a somewhat exotic itinerary, especially one that involved a lot of interline travel, I'd always check one or two of the OTAs just to make sure it wasn't possible to do a lot better on price.

luv2ctheworld

I think 3Cforme has provided something prior:

This is the type of situation where following the rules are the obvious solutions; no one is denying that.

However, I am stating that this also allows for more out of the box thinking that can make United, or any organization, look like stars instead of automatons that only follow the script.

There was a story of the pilot of WN that took care of a passenger (after the plane had already pushed back):
https://www.thedenverchannel.com/new...ized-in-denver

Or reaccommodating a group (due to weather irrops):
Southwest Goes Above And Beyond For WWII Veterans Group

These are the type of examples that generate goodwill. Granted, stories also run of when airlines screw up (rightly or wrongly), but UA on the whole, gets more negative publicity than positive (and no, I do not believe in the concept that any publicity is good publicity if you are already a well established brand or organization).

GrayAnderson

So, a serious question: Could UA (realistically) restrict what can be done externally with a ticket, as a matter of policy, once a passenger has boarded (well, been "scanned in")? Basically, could they have the system set up so that only the pax (or someone in their party) or the gate agents at the departing airport can change a ticket at that stage? It seems like allowing an external cancellation after that point effectively violates the UA policy of not kicking someone off after they've boarded.

Setting that aside, I think UA might want to consider dropping a brick on the OTA in question. This isn't Expedia or Orbitz, so it might be worth UA's while to come out and "fire" them and to restrict what a third-party seller can use as a claim for a fraudulent ticket purchase (e.g. "an SDC or SDS change is, all else being equal, not considered suspicious by United and we will not consider a cancellation request on this basis to be valid").

FWIW, the blurb on Google about the company in question: " 24*7 Online support help desk for travelers looking for customer support for travel related quires, airline contact numbers, air travel reservation query, flight status and more". Bold is mine. Yes, that's "quires", not "queries"...boy, does that inspire confidence.

But I'll also agree that this would have been a case where some quick thinking on the part of the gate agent would have helped and should have been rewarded.

cjermain

Agreed. This whole situation was in no way UA's fault. But their reaction to the situation was under their control. At the point that the GA told a crying passenger "nobody flies for free" and refused to help, they were guilty of making the situation worse, if only marginally. If the GA felt that s/he could not take 5 minutes to attempt to rectify the situation, an "I'm so sorry, I understand the situation, but you don't have a ticket, and for security reasons..." would have been more appropriate. I get that as a GA, you are dealing with yellers and sob stories all of the time, so you have to learn to be a bit rough around the edges. But this could have been handled better.