UA Using Dishonest Tactics to Avoid Oversell
 

So this is a new one for me. Was scheduled to fly AAA-ORD-BBB today. It starts off with the text several hours before the flight saying “We’ll see you soon!”, except that the message states my flight leaves over an hour earlier than scheduled and to a different destination.

I go to the app and find that my BP’s are gone and that two new segments AAA-BBB direct are in my PNR. I can see these and my original flights under “My Trips” but on the home screen and “Details” from home my original flight is gone.

Anyway, I call the 1K line to find out what’s going on and if it’s my company’s TA, UA ops, or airport. Turns out it’s the latter but the 1K agent tells me notes say it’s due to “storms in Chicago” and “very likely that one or both of my flights will be cancelled.” She then proceeds to ask if I want to have one of the two AAA-BBB options confirmed. Honesty only one option would work as I can’t make the first one.

I tell the agent that I’ll go to the airport to figure it out. In the meantime check my Wunderground app and FlightAware. No major airport delay and no weather. No storms on radar and less than 20% chance of rain. Sensing something fishy I check the UA app and my two original flights are on time and inbound aircraft scheduled to arrive early.

A quick check of the UA app and I find J1Y0 for my AAA-ORD flight.

I get to the airport and find a TA as I can’t get my BP’s on the phone and ask what’s going on with my PNR. She researched, says hmmm a few times, then explains more or less that a Sup at MCI probably did this to avoid an oversell and wanted to help me out.

So, here’s my thoughts. If there is an oversold flight, I appreciate being offered a chance at a faster itin for free. Heck, kudos to UA for offering me an F seat on AAA-BBB (both original flights had been CPU’d to F). I’d love it if they even offered me a small VDB ECV (they didn’t). But what leaves me with a sour taste was the dishonesty of someone who tried to scare me into taking a different itin so UA could save some VDB vouchers. I don’t know if it was the 1K agent or someone who put notes in my PNR about storms.

Anyone else law ever have this happen? Wonder if this is a new UA thing or just a local AAA ops thing. I’d happily consider and appreciate if UA proactively reaches out, was honest about it, and offered the change. I’d probably would have taken it for sure if they threw in as small as $100 ECV. But the dishonestly is what is going to make me move business the rest of the year once I hit 120 PQM’s.

How would you react?

It's really hard to figure all this out with fake places such as "AAA" and "BBB,":

Bottom line is that if the reroute is scheduled to get you to your destination within one hour of the originally scheduled ticket, you have been IDB but the compensation is $0. In theory, UA is obligated to have sought volunteers but there is no penalty or compensation for not doing so nor has DOT enforced that provision.

The first reaction is there is a lot of supposition and speculation leading to the conclusion. It may be the right conclusion, but it is still mostly speculation on the motivation.

Having my flight changed without overt notification is a bigger deal to me.

My guess, if the ETC is important, a post-flight email to 1Kvoice about the lack of notification will get that.

I guess I would wait to see a pattern before moving my business. One-offs are a fact of life.

FWIW, there was a Traffic Management program active into O'Hare this morning, reason WX/Thunderstorms.

Storms were predicted, but never materialized (at least near me and I am 15 minutes from ORD).

Yes, too many whatifs

If you care, contact UA and ask for ORC (original routing credit). Mostly useful for chasing status (since RDM is based on PQD, no changes there)

Generally when this happens, a UA agent calls to offer the switch instead of doing it under the covers. Not everyone can arrive to airport to catch the earlier flight

Why so scared to put the actual airport codes? Would make it a lot easier to track what you're talking about!

That being said, I doubt there was some scheme to lie about storms. Likely, there was a delay warning triggered in the system and you were proactively offered a flight that you admit worked fine. I'm also confused why if only one of the two options worked for you, you'd tell the agent on the phone that you'll just go to the airport and figure it out there? Why not just confirm and be done instead of showing up to AAA :rolleyes: with a bunch of segments and an unsynced ticket?

I have had something similar happen to me a few times. The last time I was flying SNA-EWR-DCA with EWR-DCA being after a 3 or so hour connection. I got to SNA and was checking in when my itinerary showed a completely different routing (i believe it was SNA-ORD-DCA or SNA-IAH-DCA that would get me to DC earlier than scheduled. Anyways to make a long story short after asking why my flights were changed, I was told “someone thought you would prefer getting into DC earlier” which at first pass I would agree with but was traveling with someone on another PNR. They fixed the ticket and it turns out they were over sold on the SNA-EWR leg and were soliciting volunteers at the gate👍 😏

Why the secrecy over airports? Please use real codes. Your privacy is safe here...

It's amazing how popular AAA and BBB are. I've tried numerous times to book flights there but they must always be sold out because they never show in the search results.

Often over booked but an easy play for a VDB. I once got stuck in BBB for days.... Simply horrible but I got my ECV out of it. ;)

Alas, AAA and BBB don’t have scheduled passenger flights! How they can therefore be overbooked is anyone’s guess. Though if given a choice I’d much rather go to French Polynesia than Minnesota.

I once had a forced overnight in XXX and all I got afterwards were some antibiotics.

I think you really misread the information you had available to you, or were looking at the wrong info.

FAA was expecting terminal constraints for ORD due to tstorms, with ground stops and CDRS/SWAP possible after 11Z, which then materialized around 1015Z. A proposed GDP due throughput issues/gate issues and unstable air was out by 1018Z for arrivals 12Z-19Z, and implemented by 1034Z. It ended up being cancelled at 1454Z as the weather didn't go as poorly as expected.

I think the airport agent, noting that things were headed south at ORD and you had nonstop options, was trying to help you out more than avoid a VDB. They may have also been somewhat overbooked, although with J1Y0 not that much.

UA comms sucked as usual.

When I was cabbing out to ORD this morning just around 05:00, I can attest that there were multiple lightening strikes in the sky to the north of the airport. But I didn't see any rain.

File this under "no good deed goes unpunished."

Your supposition makes little sense unless -- maybe -- AAA is SFO and they're trying to clean up the mess from runway construction. UA might occasionally try to clear an oversell by moving someone onto a more convenient flight, but the idea that there's a big conspiracy to avoid giving vouchers seems over the top. If you had tried to board your original flights, you would have been accommodated on them.

Did you look at the flight statuses? Did they go out full, with no standbys cleared?

I will give you some credit, though -- at least you didn't blame this on somebody wanting to open a space for non-revs...

The lightning might be more of an issue than the rain. OSHA likely frowns on employers letting ramp workers get a little extra crispy.

The other point is that you have contracted with UA for transport from point A to point B. You have not purchased a particular routing. UA specifically has the right under the CoC to alter the routing.

The American Automobile Association HQ is near MCO. The Better Business Bureau national office is in Arlington, VA, so DCA. But if OP was offered a non-stop alternative on United, I’m going to guess that BBB is actually IAD.

Isn't the earlier departure time the bigger problem here? OP says the new flight departs over one hour earlier. Making that change without content and notification sounds a bit annoying.

The change wasn't made, only proposed, and there were two options, one OP could make:

According to the OP, it was actually from point AAA to point BBB...

Any time this has happened to me, I’ve received a call in advance, presenting me with options. One time I was not flying out of my home airport, that flight was oversold, they called me 4-5 hour ahead, saved me a 2-hour drive each way (and changed my return flight so my car was at the right airport), and scored a $250 voucher for my “troubles”. But most importantly, no changes were made without my permission.

Would the OP have been able to take the original flights, with upgrades and seats intact? My understanding is that the OP's reservation or ticket was changed by UA without the OP's consent. If OP had simply gone to the airport as planned, he would have missed the new flight. Then what would have happened? Would UA have considered this a no show and just cancelled the ticket?

My understanding is they just added some protection segs, neither of which were confirmed:

That's how I read it also. OP was un-checked in -- which is SOP in this situation, and doesn't mean anything -- and then they had the original flights plus two backup nonstop protection flights added. As soon as OP chose the desired option, they protection segments would be dropped and check-in would proceed again.

That's great, proactive UA 1K service. Not just back-up protection, but two different options.

What route did OP eventually fly? Maybe OP only planned on flying AAA-ORD and not ORD-BBB?

That's one of the risks of HCT - the carrier can change your routing and you have no recourse.

Almost as popular as Voinjama in the old days of agents manually typing it in as a dummy destination!

Well there are a few lurkers on here so it would be possible for United to identify OP if given enough info. E.g. AZO-ORD 10SEP19. Heck, they can probably do it based on what's presented here (with a few phone calls, of course).

Agreed; if you're trying to hide things from the airlines, obfuscating airport codes isn't likely to help.

I'm not a fan of oversharing, and I'll frequently use XXX or AAA when the details don't matter. In this particular case, though -- the details seem to matter.

UA has been proactively rebooking pax from oversold flights from stops to nonstop for a while. But this was usually done at the gate without telling you the reason of "generosity".

I won't say this practice is dishonest, but questionable. The way I see this practice as soon as UA is willing to offer this, and pax accepting this, there will be no overselling, i.e. no V/IDB compensation. Questionable is UA should tell the pax why the "generosity".

IDB compensation in that situation is zero, because you arrive at the destination on time. UA is well within their rights to move the passenger to a different routing, including changing connecting airports, adding, or dropping a transfer, even if the reason if due to an oversale, provided that the passenger still gets to their destination within an hour of the scheduled time.

I tried to get to ZZZ in economy but I never could get there.

Yeah I’ve had this too, with no warning. LAX-SFO-SEA, they protected me and the Mrs. on LAX-SEA.

No no notification but the change wasn’t forced. The segments were simply protected, and when I got to the lounge I asked what was going on and they said ‘oh we thought you might want to get to Seattle sooner.’ ( And they offered the whole thing in F; I’d only cleared one of the segments at that point.)

I happily said yes; I considered that good service and not some sinister plot to keep me from getting a voucher. Sure it may have saved UA a voucher by freeing up a seat, but that’s what I call win-win. I get to my destination sooner and they save some money.

Not sure why you’re sticking around for 120 PQMs. You need 100,000 to make 1K.:D

I can’t fathom this out. Unless the OP was on a “VDB run” and had booked the original flights knowing they were typically oversold and hoping to make a little fortune from a VDB deal.

If its about the miles (unlikely as they’re only after 120 :D ) the RDM/PQD wouldn’t go down as they’re based on the fare. If it’s PQMs you can request ORC. But when my upgrade cleared flights get rebooked they book into a premium fare bucket (anything from P which gives 1.5x PQM to J which gives 3x) so even without ORC you can often end up better off. Indeed I’ve had cases where the rebooking into a premium bucket increased the RDMs and PQD st no extra cost to me.

The difference in PQM would be minimal anyway. According to gcmap.com, the difference is only about 10%!

AAA-ORD 5,489 mi
ORD-BBB 452 mi
Total 5,941 mi

AAA-BBB 5,327 mi

So was “AAA” actually MCI? If so, and if the flights were on UA mainline that would make “BBB” any of the major hubs.

And one MCI-ORD flight was canceled on 9/10 (2174), and another (4597) was delayed.

I HATE getting stuck at BBB. The only thing was was the time I got stuck at AAA. Both terrible experiences that made me truly hate those airports.

UA Using Dishonest Tactics to Avoid Oversell
 

I tell the agent that I’ll go to the airport to figure it out. In the meantime check my Wunderground app and FlightAware. No major airport delay and no weather. No storms on radar and less than 20% chance of rain. Sensing something fishy I check the UA app and my two original flights are on time and inbound aircraft scheduled to arrive early.

A quick check of the UA app and I find J1Y0 for my AAA-ORD flight.

I get to the airport and find a TA as I can’t get my BP’s on the phone and ask what’s going on with my PNR. She researched, says hmmm a few times, then explains more or less that a Sup at MCI probably did this to avoid an oversell and wanted to help me out.