It's one thing to offer a passenger a reroute without compensation, especially from a connection to a nonstop or to a flight that departs and arrives earlier on the same day, but IMO it's clearly unreasonable to ever expect someone to go away from the airport and come back the next day without compensation.

Moreover, if one is being rebooked to the next day, obviously the procedure would *not* be that the passenger would call UA to be rebooked as that would result in a change fee and possibly a higher fare (and risk being marked as a no show if the airport agent didn't correctly mark the ticket). So the agent's claim about doing the kid a special favor by doing the rebooking at the airport was just nonsense.

If a UA airport agent (or airport contract worker) rebooks a UA passenger for free to the next day's flight, wouldn't they be required to enter notes or codes justifying why this was done and why no change fee was charged? It's hard to imagine a legitimate reason to do this before the flight closes (flat tire rule) unless the passenger arrived in an unfit to fly state such as being drunk, which seems unlikely early in the morning and well in time for the flight. It could be very interesting to see UA's version of what happened and why the ticket was changed.

OTOH, if we're looking for a motivation for an agent to want to do this, perhaps the agent knew some nonrevs (NRSAs) trying to get onto the (full) flight and thought it would be easy to manipulate the situation to create some seats for standbys in a situation where it would have been a clear (and probably fireable) violation to offer either VDB or IDB compensation. So I really hope that someone here can clarify whether any standbys did get onto the flight.

Hopefully the OP will return soon with the route, flight number, and travel date for the original confirmed reservation.

Also as to US or overseas. How many overseas checkin counters are staffed 4 hours prior to a flight? A few, with multiple flights to multiple hubs, but the list isn’t many.

im thinking there was some sort of miscommunication as well. Either between what airport staff offered the pax and what they understood, or what pax said to the OP, and how that was interpreted. Or maybe both. Broken telephone syndrome, so to speak.

my bad - I’ve seen IDB used around this thread a lot, and thought I saw that in OP, but re-reading again, appears OP only uses the word ‘bumped’. IDB would also presumably require compensation, which per the OP wasn’t given. So bumped appears to be the more accurate term.

Fair. OP doesn’t really mention the gate, so it was an assumption on my part this was at checkin counter, since that was mentioned. I’m pretty sure they always offer compensation at the gate though, at least where I’ve ever seen this. Hard pressed to see how they would ‘require’ OP to go the next day, without any comp or overnight hotel beyond a ‘discount’ (unless this was pax origin, where they probably don’t offer hotel typically). Again, reason why the OP is needed back here to provide relevant details.

again, agreed. There are at least 2 places miscommunication could have occurred, as I previously mentioned. Hopefully, we can get at least part clarity on some of the details.

dont know how many, but certainly a few. Off the top of my head, probably all of NRT, LHR, FRA, MUC, and likely other more major EU cities with multiple departure like AMS, BRU, maybe ZRH? Though don’t know the schedules for all those. Also, probably HKG and possible PEK and PVG?

we still haven’t confirmed whether this was US-Asia or vv. Again, OP providing details would help.

Of your list, only NRT, HKG, PEK, and PVG would have nonstop UA operated TPAC flights. BKK? SIN? ICN? I wouldn't think so, but I don't know UA's TPAC schedule very well.

I would expect most UA international outstation check in counters (unless operated by a close partner like LH) to open three hours before the flight. However three versus four isn't enough, and a person not familiar with the (foreign) airport or public transportation could arrive at the airport almost four hours before the flight, then mess around with finding the right check in counter, maybe purchase breakfast or some souvenirs,and get to the check in counter not much earlier than when it opens, thereby being among the first to check in at the airport or check bags at the airport for the flight.