cherribabe

What was the cause of the flight delay?

FriendlySkies

$150 for not being able to see exit rows on .bomb

In my email to 1P Voice, I merely asked if they had an ETA for the website fix. I made no hints towards compensation...

Peatisback

This one left me a little frustrated:

Flew from IAD on a Friday evening. My flight was delayed about 2 hours because of a combined crew/mechanical delay. I had booked a ride home on a scheduled shuttle service; my house is about 30 minutes from airport I flew in to. Because of the delay, I missed the last scheduled shuttle run of the night. Spoke to the (horrible) ground staff at IAD in the A concourse, a reservation agent on the phone, and the ground staff at my arrival airport- all said to get a cab and send in a receipt for reimbursement. I did just that. A few weeks later, I get a voicemail from customer relations saying they would be sending a check to reimburse me within the next two weeks. Five minutes later, I get a second voicemail saying that my request was declined.

I understand that they got me to my final destination, and that's all they have to do, but it was frustrating to hear 4 different people say I would be reimbursed, get a call from customer relations saying I would get a check, the finally get a message saying 'tough luck'.

businesstraveller2

Very good to know.

Diplomatico

ORD RCC matron refused to allow me to bring a guest into the club because "I didn't know him". Emailed 1K Voice, emailed the RCC, emailed the ORD Director of Operations. About a month later an extra SWU showed up in my account.

mhnadel

Late arriving airplane. Why the plane was late arriving was never explained, but I assume it was mechanical since it was coming into LAX from HNL and there weren't weather issues on that route that I know of.

The irony is that the delay is a good thing for me becuase my flight from IAD to LAX had had a weather delay and I would have missed the connection if it had been on time.

shadesupordown

Delayed 15+ hours ORD->NRT->BKK

5 hour mechanical delay at ORD caused everyone to miss their connecting flights in NRT->BKK. Thus United overnighted us at NRT and put us on a Thai airlines flight the next day. Total delay to destination BKK 15+ hours.

I had another connecting flight out of BKK the next day elsewhere so this delay caused me to miss that flight (not star alliance). I had to buy a new ticket on another airline. Not to mention I missed a night in BKK at a nice hotel (prepaid).

As a loyal and continued 1k I was upgraded business throughout (systemwide upgrade) however, United did not book me on business on Thai airlines (even though there were plenty of business seats available). Thai airlines has about the least legroom I have ever seen on an airline in economy.

So after losing a good day of my trip I am out:
-Cost of another airline ticket
-Cost of night of hotel in BKK that I did not use
-Systemwide upgrade did not apply to Thai airlines even though I was confirmed throughout on United

Here is the offer (I am not going to take it, this is an insult and I plan to take my business elsewhere)

->$350 domestic certificate
->12,500 miles
->20% discount certificate (international as of 8/1/10)

Are my feelings wrong? Should I be a happy camper with United's offer?

lax2010

I think there is no right or wrong in term of your feeling. Similarly, there is no right or wrong on the UA part as accident does happen and they tried to fix it and compensate for it. I would not personally feel insulted but it is just I. I am justing telling you how I would feel.

I bet if you contact 1k with the huge BKK hotel bill, they will reimburse you, may be with an additional ecert or cash.

BTW, I am sorry to hear you travel plan was messed up a bit!

shadesupordown

Thanks for your reply lax2010.

While I agree no airline is perfect and there will be mechanical issues on all airlines at some point in time, proper compensation should be provided to offset the delay/travel disruption especially for top customers. I can see if I were premier executive or below I probably wouldn't have expected much. But being a continued and repeated 1k with many miles flown with United I do. United definitely let me down and offered no assistance throughout the process. I did submit a bill for the new air, hotel and phone charges and United told me to "go fly a kite" OK not the exact words.

It is unfortunate as I have built up a good relationship with United but the entire ordeal has caused me to rethink my continued business with them. I have status on two other large airlines so it will not affect me that greatly to send my business elsewhere, which I fully intend to do. United just lost a good customer.

Cheerfulflyer

You seem new to FT, so it would be good to memorize one of the many helpful FT Mantras: If you don't like the response you get, politely hang up and call again.

My own view is that you didn't get a bad deal. Most airlines are not as generous as UA. Try knocking on AA or CO for issues and they'll hand you the kite (often) without any compensation.

weirdlyndon

+1. I know of no other airline that gives compensation as loosely and generously as UA. Tell UA your flight's inflight entertainment didn't work = $250. JetBlue inop TV = $15 voucher. Hiccups do happen, but i'm sure it has happened to all frequent fliers on several occasions. Mechanical delays happen. Weather happens. Any airline tries its best to run an efficient and on time operation, but there are issues sometimes.

RudderDucky

Took a VDB and was given $400 in flight vouchers and put on a bus to my connecting city instead of the short 20 minute flight, and I still made it in time for my original connection. The GA who processed my VDB told me to fill out a missing flight credit form or call Mileage Plus to get the miles credited from that VDBed short hop, so I called, and when the MP call centre was unable to process my mileage request on the telephone, they offered me a $200 voucher/20% off/9000 RDM as an apology for not being able to process the credit and recommended sending in the missing credit form and my boarding pass via mail. I made it clear that I still got to my destination and compensated from the VDB, but the call centre insisted with compensation, so I took the $200 voucher. Seems quite generous to me, but I'm not complaining!

ONTRandy

9k miles for WX related misconnect in DEN yesterday.

Explore

Regrettably, CO is due to take over UA.

shadesupordown

Why should I? I mean why should I have to expend anymore energy on this situation than I already have? I appreciate the feedback but I have already made numerous contact to United and as mentioned received no support, even while in Tokyo I talked with the supervisor in Honolulu, nothing.

While I appreciate your feedback as well, you are completely missing the point. Hiccups as you say do happen, it is the response that matters. United treated me a loyal 1k as a second class citizen. While no compensation could be granted, I believe there very well could be a good case made that due to United's mechanical failure, they did not fulfill an implied promise to get me to my paid destination at a reasonably expected time, thus as a direct result caused me to miss my connecting flight etc. etc. The compensation $350 does not even begin to cover my direct out of pocket expenses as a result of United's mechanical issues.

I am not going to continue to waste any more time or energy on this. I am still fairly young with a lot more miles to fly. United's shortsightedness, will unfortunately cost them a life long customer.