lainys

Heathrow was on air traffic control due to low fog ceiling this morning. Missed the LHR-LAX flight. Was bummed because I had confirmed SWU upgrades from W to C. At the transfer desk, agent looks at my boarding pass....

"ahh yes Mrs Lainys. I took the liberty of rebooking you onto the direct LHR-SFO flight."
"Can I by put on the upgrade waitlist" I ask hopefully.
"It's almost 1pm. Flight is now closed. Please hurry to gate 31 as the scheduled departure time is 1:20pm. I'm so sorry about the E+ seat. I thought it was more important we get you to your destination sooner" say agent in her english accent.

"OK just take the boarding pass and say thank you" - my thoughts
"oh man!! no time to argue. Chariots of Fire dash here we come" - I mutter quietly.

At gate 31 - "no rush Mrs Lainys" says the smiling gate agent as she slams the door into my butt (well...almost)
"We were expecting you. Here is your new boarding pass. I hope you don't mind we took the liberty of deducting an SWU from your account". No go for upgrades at the transfer desk but somehow during my sprint the upgrade materialized after all.

Back home now I see that LHR-LAX took off a little late however LAX-SFO were delayed 3 hrs. Standing by for earlier flights would not have helped as they all took off and landed around the same time. I would have ended up landing at SFO just before 8pm. Instead I got to SFO at 5pm by being rebooked on the direct LHR-SFO flight.

I never feel "entitled" to an upgrade especially when it's not within UA's control that I missed my original flight. Paid for a W fare seat (for the "chance" to upgrade) and I was prepared to suffer the human pretzel position especially with so many people trying to rebook at LHR. Was pleasantly surprised to be accommodated in C after all. I can only guess it was due to the super efficiency of the LHR ground staff. Thank you UA!!

brooklyngal

While traveling on United last week, I inadvertently forgot a bag full of bereavement notes as well as the list of people that I need to thank for being there for me during the recent death of my father. I was pretty upset when I realized it but didn't remember where I left it and didn't know how I could possibly locate it.

Well, you can imagine my surprise when I came home today to find a large envelope from United Airlines full of everything from the bag, including my stamps and a Beethoven CD that had been a favorite of my Dad's. There was no note or anything so I can't thank anyone in particular so I thought I'd post this for the world to see.

Thank you United Airlines for going above and beyond!!!

#10

Dear brooklyngal,

Sorry to hear about your Father. There is no doubt that there are some incredible folks at UA, and I'm so glad that your trip intersected with them. Thanks for sharing your story.

#10

RoaminRoman

For some reason, changing the time of one of my flights on a RTW ticket caused that leg of my ticket to be cancelled. I called the 1K voice line and the agent patiently rebuilt the ticket for me, even though the it was issued on TG stock. Unfortunately, I forgot to get the agent's name.
This is the second time I have had a problem when making a minor change on a RTW ticket, and both times it was UA that fixed the problem even though strictly speaking it was not their responsibility.

DCA writer

My wife, our nearly-five-month-old daughter and I were on track to get to Dulles with plenty of time... before Mini DCA Writer decided she needed to eat NOW. So we walked into the terminal a bit more than an hour before the flight, which might have been enough time on an average Tuesday but was not four days before Christmas. We waited to check our baggage, present boarding passes at security, get through screening and--most infuriating of all--take not one but two elevators from security to the people mover. (The last stage, thanks to one elevator being out of service, ate up at least 5 minutes. I had no idea how inefficient IAD could be until I had to push a stroller through the place).

All this had us rolling up to gate D16 about 10 minutes before 915's scheduled departure to SFO. The door was shut, and one of the agents told the three of us and a single traveler in front that the flight was closed. We had not begun to plead our case when she took another look, picked up the phone, talked for a minute or two and swiped her ID to re-open the door. She and her colleague quickly but pleasantly scanned our boarding passes and processed gate-check tags for our stroller and car seat: not "I can't believe we're doing this for these people" but "yeah, we're getting these people on their flight."

(It seems they had a reason to re-open the flight: The baggage handlers were still loading luggage, ours included, after we reached our seat. Is there a page in the rulebook for this situation? Would we have gotten shut out if we didn't have a cute baby?)

I barely had time to think "these people earned a GTEM" until we were in our seat. I hope the e-mail I submitted through .bomb will suffice.

Beer Me!

Due to work, the holidays, and a somewhat rough mini-MR, I haven't had a chance to share this recent experience with you all. Better late than never, right?

Myself and 8 other colleagues were set to return to the US on UA 909 December 19th (AMS-ORD). As you may recall, that was the first day of the recent weather issues in northern Europe. The flight was scheduled to depart at 11am, but after arriving at the gate we quickly realized that was not going to happen. We were informed that the plane was on the ground in AMS, but there were no gates available. At approximately noon, we were sent to a different gate and allowed to clear security. After nearly two hours in the pen, we began boarding shortly before 2pm. As we were boarding however, it was snowing so hard that it was difficult to see the tail of the AC through the window of the terminal. About an hour prior, they announced that all flights with a European destination were being canceled for the rest of the day. Needless to say this did not instill confidence that we were going anywhere soon.

On board, my colleague befriended one of the FAs (David). David informed us that we had a decent chance of getting out of AMS as the weather was lightening up and we had a priority slot (#3 IIRC) for de-icing. He said the thing most likely to derail us was that the pilots were due to timeout at 4pm CET.

At around 4:30pm, we were still sitting at the gate. Disheartened, we began to hit the phones trying to secure enough hotel rooms for the night at AMS. David stopped back by and told our group that the pilots had indeed timed out for the trip to ORD but that they had hatched a plan with Operations. The flight would be re-routed to IAD, where they would change crew and continue on to ORD. This would buy just enough time to keep the pilots legal. Sure enough, about 5 minutes later we began de-icing at the gate and pushed back around 4:50 and were on our way to IAD!

On board, the crew was fantastic. The cockpit kept us informed and the FAs remained very friendly and professional even though they were even more inconvenienced than the PAX (they would be stuck in IAD for the night and were going to have significant changes to their future schedules). We landed at IAD around 8:30pm, changed crews as planned, and departed a little before 9:30pm to ORD.

Of course, most continuing pax on board would be stuck at ORD overnight (myself included), but we were all happy to be back in the US. Nearly all of my other colleagues on other flights/airlines were stuck in AMS -- some for three days or more. And as a cherry on top, UA offered all of us Customer Appreciation compensation for "our inconveniences" : a $300 domestic e-cert, 12,500 miles, or 20% off.

Even though I am very late in posting, I still thought it was important to share this with the community. Kudos to the exceptional crew for staying professional in the light of adversity and making the flight as pleasant as possible. I also applaud UA for being willing to think outside the box and find a way to get us out of Europe in the face of the weather issues -- especially with hindsight knowledge of how bad the alternative would have been!

giceh

This is reported a bit late (been busy with the holiday!), but I want to thank the very generous SFO gate agents who upgraded multiple parties to business class on the P.S. flight to JFK on Christmas Eve even though the standard policy is to not give complimentary upgrades on the P.S. flights! This came as a great surprise to me and my travel companion especially because we were both using free tickets! I have sent a compliment on the website with the gate agents' names. When I thanked them in person, they just shrugged it off saying, "It's Christmas!". This makes me feel so relieved and grateful to have flown United even though I have not been able to use half of my SWUs this year, so, I feel like this free upgrade helps make up for the times when I couldn't apply my upgrade instruments.

We're flying back New Year's Eve too, but somehow I don't think that'll generate as much goodwill. Have other people experienced Christmas upgrades too?

FriendlySkies

My experience with the 1K agents at ORD this evening, signifies the biggest reason that I fly with UA -- the people.

For the last few days, I have been looking up flights to visit SJU in February. The best routing for me would be MCI-IAD/ (next day) IAD-SJU/ (next day) SJU-ORD-MCI. With the routing confirmed, and a hotel already reserved, I gave the 1K desk a call to check on pricing. I placed my call at 12:26am, and was sent to a very nice rep in ORD, Stephanie. From the get-go, she was very friendly, and helped with come up with creative routings after we ran into pricing issues. With the perfect routing in order, I gave her my e-cert #, and waited on hold, while Stephanie gave the info to web support. Unfortunately, the ICC was confused with my routing, so they put her on hold to contact their "supervisors".. For the next twenty minutes, I got to listen to Rhapsody in Blue, until I could hum the entire song

A bit later, the ICC said that did not know what to do, so Stephanie came back to me, checked a few more things with the routing, and then contacted her rate desk. Since I had included an 11 hour stopover @ IAD, they refused to ticket the itinerary, so we had to get creative.

First, we stripped out MCI-IAD, and then tried IAD-SJU-ORD-MCI, which seemed to work. With the routing in mind, another call was placed to web support. However, they decided to keep both of us on hold for 45 minutes.. During that time, Stephanie helped me figure out different ways to get this ticket to comply with the fare rules. Even though her system told her that we could use the e-cert on this routing, web support refused, and put her on hold for another 25 minutes.. During this time, FlyerTalk came up, and she really got into ways to help me with this itin. She mentioned that another person had called in earlier that day, and FlyerTalk had also come up, so it sounded like it was time to check it out. With more than 10 years at UA, she had never heard about it.. With more time on hold, we talked a lot about the merger, and what it meant for passengers. The ICCs also came up, as well as E+.

Web support finally came back, and refused to issue the ticket, as they would not allow IAD-SJU-ORD.. After they were gone, I was just amazed at the amount of work that had been put into this attempt. Stephanie had spent almost two hours on the phone with me, and had even gone into overtime, as her shift had ended much earlier. She was very dedicated to helping me with the ticket.

All in all, she had to be the best agent that I have ever dealt with. While some might not do all they can to find alternate routings, and come up with creative ways to get this accepted, she would not back down. Although we could not ticket the itin, she said that this was time well spent. Stephanie also mentioned that she appreciates that so many of us call in with the information all ready to go, making their lives much easier, especially for complex tickets.

Thanks, Stephanie! I'll be writing a nice note to 1KVoice in the morning ^

ZephyrK9

Grazie Mille

ahhh the elusive TATL upgrade to 1st class for non status member. Altho this return flight from FCO to SMF puts me in Premier. I had booked biz due to long transcon/tatl flight. I asked to be put on waitlist for the flight home from FCO~IAD. I was pleasantly surprised a couple days ago to see my upgrade to F had gone through on flight 967 12/31. I am NOT looking forward to clearing customs through IAD. Going through IAD is enough to make anybody want to tranquilize themselves. I knew I had a better chance for upgrade flying through IAD as everybody hates it including myself. Flying F will help ease the pain of flying through IAD
The flights on 12/20 to FCO were wonderful GREAT crew on both flights UA290 & UA966. I had taken a box of chocolates for the FA's b/c the flight was close to Christmas. How kind of them to come up and personally thank me, I wasn't expecting that..I just wanted to be nice and spread Christmas cheer as I would be spending Christmas alone. Wonderful service.
Thanks for the belated Birthday present UA~the elusive (for me anyway) tatl upgrade to F. Happy New Year

VivoPerLei

I called UA today to request two *A award seats to MCT in C with a stopover in DXB on the return and was fully expecting to hear that there was no availability. I was off the phone in 15 minutes with a confirmed itin for exactly my preferred flights and days! Thanks, UA!!!

l etoile

Please continue 2011 experiences here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...es-2011-a.html