UA proactively cancelling segments thinking you'll misconnect is a bad idea
 

This is a new one for me, but massively frustrating. If there's an existing thread on it, feel free to merge.

UA79 to NRT on 1/13 was delayed 3 hours due to a mechanical issue: ladder punctured the fuselage on the original plane. Had a connecting flight to CGK which was in jeopardy, but I was confident since NRT no longer has transit security for US inbounds and I was carry-on only.

Confirmed with UA in the lounge prior to takeoff that my connection would stay intact. Upon arriving 20 minutes prior to departure for NH835 in NRT, I'm told my by the ANA agents that UA cancelled the segment because they didn't think I'd make it. Even though it was an ANA ticket, NH ground staff were useless in getting the segment back, and I had to watch my flight home board and leave without me.

I'm not even after compensation here, but I find the practice of actually removing connecting segments to be a terrible practice if customers can in fact make their flight within the legal times.

Rant over :o Is there anything I could have done better in this situation?

I would have insisted that NH figure it out later, and let me on. I know, easier said than done.

I wonder if Japan has denied boarding compensation,but certainly would take advantage of it.

That... doesn't make sense.

And that makes even less sense. If it's their ticket, they can re-instate it.

What did your record look like? Did you have a new flight in place? Had UA re-issued your ticket onto 016 stock?

You'd have to check to see if T-20 was considered "on time" enough for an international departure.

This is going to get compared to this: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...d-my-trip.html , although I'm not sure that they're related.

Did the inbound to NRT have wifi?

If so, and assuming you were able to catch it in flight, you might have been able to email/text someone on the ground to call in on your behalf to restore it.

But yeah, bad situation there.

what did they offer? same flight next day from NRT, or self-connect via HND same night at 11pm?

I've had reservations ticketed by UA then reissued incorrectly by agents (I think it was LX) and then i was at the gate over an hour before departure with a reservation in hand. and they couldn't get the boarding pass to print (i assume a ticket reissue issue) and then i watched board and fly home without me. was super super annoyed. except. it was a mileage ticket. they took about 2 more hours then got me booked the next day and at least i earned award miles for a business class flight on LX. that was how i justified to myself to not go totally crazy on them.

They had protected me on a later flight out of HND, but the original flight was still in place during the entire trip. While in flight I even had my brother call UA to verify that the original res was still good. Always on 205 stock, never 016. By the time this fiasco ended, that flight had sold out, and I was rebooked to KUL at my request.


According to this page, 10 minutes is the cutoff, so I was there with plenty of time

Was babysitting the reservation the whole flight. Everything looked good, and I was able to confirm my check-in status on the NH app at all times.

Out of all places, I think Japan is probably for worst for asserting what is 'right'. I informed the staff that I don't care how it's done, but they need to take control of the ticket, and reissue me in any class to get me on the flight (I was booked in C)

The picture below sums it up. Just imagine them saying "I'm so sorry, it cannot be done", as they close the door and the last bus leaves

NH passed the buck to UA for re-booking. By the time it was all resolved, the best I was able to negotiate was a redeye to KUL from HND. Not ideal in any sense.

This is so odd. My question was going to be if you had checked with NH, because I thought maybe UA screwed up the protection flight in such a way that the original space was unconfirmed. (In fact, they definitely screwed up the protection, because you should have had a spot on the HND-CGK flight; that's obviously the point of protection). So I wonder if it's not so much that UA deleted anything -- I'm not even really sure how they could have without exchanging the ticket for a 016 ticket -- as they confused ANA's CRS to the point where it offloaded you from both flights because it didn't see a valid coupon attached to either. (Which, again, would make a lot more sense on a 016 ticket than a 205).

^

Japan and Germany are likely #1a and #1b in my book. I can't imagine any way to have resolved this without getting the ticket fixed first.

UA must have taken over the ticket -- even if they didn't reissue it -- and not relinquished control properly.

To answer your original question: I don't see anything you could have done differently here except say to UA, "don't protect me; I'll work it out at Narita," which only makes sense in hindsight. I would have done the same thing you did.

Are you talking about 10 prior to departure or 10 minutes prior to start of boarding.

UA rules are you must be at the gate T-30 minutes and the door close at T-10. T-20 will not cut it.

The ANA rules are not relevant for a UA operated flight

If you were T-20 to departure, you were not flying UA on that flight.

This was an ANA flight, in NRT, connecting from UA, so the '10 minute before departure' statement should stand. The reason I posted it here, is NH claims that UA cancelled the NH segment assuming I would misconnect from the earlier delayed mechanical UA79.

OK, I had it backwards --appears UA applied UA rules to the ANA flight (if UA did this). I find it hard to understand how T-10 works for ANA but taking passengers at T-10 basically means not departing ontime.

But then why could not ANA re-instate the flight?

(I have now read the previous post on the ticket issues and are now even more confused about what was going on :confused:)

From what I understand, UA added a protection flight, but un-checked me in and offloaded me from the original NH835 at the last minute. United had control of the ticket, and NH, for whatever reason, couldn't regain control from UA and reinstate the segment before departure.

Overall, a protection flight should be just that, to protect if you don't make the original connection. But to un-check me before departure based on an assumption is where I'm a bit irked. The reservation still shows the flight I should have been allowed to board, so that's why I'm puzzled as well:

Madness. As to rebooking, accept no substitutes, hold out for NRT-SIN-CGK in SQ J/F.

Even if UA had deleted the segment (which sounds like an excuse made up by NH FYI), NH could have (and should have) reinstated the segment on the spot given that the ticket was plated on their stock (doesn't sound like anything ever happened to the underlying ticket). The oversale was their problem.

That said, in Japan, as mentioned above, good luck getting this fixed with the amount of time you had.

I simply do not believe that. I agree with stevenshev -- that sounds like something NH made up to cover for a computer issue. Whether the issue was on UA's side or NH's, I don't know, but I don't think that they were proactively un-checking you in from an OAL flight on the assumption that you wouldn't make it.

Further evidence that UA didn't do what NH accused them of.