<p>Ok, I’m really tired and cranky right now so forgive me if I sound whiny but I feel the need to warn all of you campus visiting folks out there about United Airlines. </p>
<p>At 1:30 a.m. our phone rang. Of course my first thought was that something horrible had happened to our daughter, who’s away at college, thank goodness that wasn’t the case. It was a representative from United Airlines (my husband said he wasn’t fluent in English so it was difficult to understand him) calling to tell us that my husband and son’s 7:00 a.m. flight from Chicago to Birmingham was cancelled.</p>
<p>That’s right, in the middle of the night, three hours before they were to wake up for the flight for a campus visit to Auburn, University of Alabama, and Ole Miss, we were informed that the flight was cancelled! </p>
<p>My husband asked if there was another flight that they could take today and the gentleman told us that they could only get us on a flight tomorrow. DH and DS had a tour scheduled at Auburn this afternoon,and we would have had to pay for our lost hotel reservation. Completely unacceptable.</p>
<p>So, DH had to get out of bed, call UA and demand that they re-book them on a different airline for today at their cost. He was able to get a flight on Delta with a stop in Atlanta before arriving in Birmingham too late to make the Auburn tour. Fortunately my DD has a friend who attends Auburn and is taking him out tonight so he will get to see the campus. Poor hubby finally got back to bed at 3:30 in the morning!</p>
<p>This is the second time that United has changed our plans at the last minute. Several years ago our family had booked a flight six months before our trip. We even had seat assignments. We arrived at the airport three hours before the international flight and when we got to the ticket agent she told us that we were bumped from the flight. They sent us through to the gate for standby and we discovered that they had done the same thing to four other families. The worst part was that the CFO of United and his family of five was on the flight. He got off of the plane to find out what was happening at the ticket counter, did nothing, and then got back on the plane and flew off with his family!!! </p>
<p>We will NEVER fly United again and I warn you to be careful if you do. They have zero regard for their passengers.</p>
<p>Two summers ago, we had a flight booked from EWR to Detroit to watch D2 perform at their closing ballet recital. The flight was 7am, and the performance was 4pm. We didn´t even get a call. We showed at the airport, and then was told the flight was cancelled. They couldn´t get us on a flight until 2 days later. D2 was 15 at that time, and the summer program was closing that day, which meant the dorm was also closing. </p>
<p>The airline claimed it was mechanical (they have no liability if it´s mechanical), but I believe it was because there weren´t enough passengers on the flight. </p>
<p>We ended up driving from Newrk to Detroit in one day. Missed the recital, but was able to be there to move D2 out of the dorm.</p>
<p>The airline was Continental. Oh wait, Continental and UA are merging. They certainly have something in common.</p>
<p>I dont fly that much, but mostly use Alaska or Southwest ( D also uses Eithad Airlines or KLM).</p>
<p>It’s helpful to learn this stuff since I don’t like flying anyway, but I do want to travel more.</p>
<p>I just booked a flight for D to Denver through Alaska & noticed there were several different classifications of fares besides business or 1st class. Do those make a difference in Re: to getting bumped?</p>
<p>emeraldkity4, the only difference in the classifications would be seat assignments and maybe, and that’s a big maybe, cancellation policies. I think that the only passengers who might be safe from being bumped would be first class. </p>
<p>I just heard on the U of Alabama forum that Southwest is the way to go. Unfortunately, they only operate out of Midway which is a hike from our house. But after this experience I think the drive would be worth it.</p>
<p>I’ve had similar problems with Delta. D2 was scheduled to fly back to college after winter break. She went to check in online only to find her flight had been rescheduled for 3 days later! She was never even notified that her flight had been changed, not by text or email even though she’s signed up for auto notification of changes. She spent more than an hour on hold trying to rebook a flight to her destination, and they eventually allowed her to book on a flight to a city about 1 1/4 hours away. (Though since there’s no public transit between the 2 cities, we had no idea how to get from point B to her destination.) However, when she asked the agent if that flight was actually scheduled to depart, the agent said “Oops. Looks like it’s cancelled too” and hung up!</p>
<p>(We eventually got D2 on another airline, but it cost me over $500 more than her original ticket’s price. Thankfully I had bought travel insurance for the original ticket and am in the process of being reimbursed by the insurance policy.)</p>
<p>And at Thanksgiving break, D2 had her Delta flights cancelled halfway thru her trip! She got as far as Atlanta and got stuck. Coming home because the connecting flight’s plane (the one that would have flown her from ATL to home) had mechanical issues at the city it was arriving from. Going back because the plane she left on from Atlanta to go to her college town had an engine failure (!!!) after take-off and made an emergency landing back in Atlanta 15 minutes after it took off.</p>
<p>Although she now has enough FF miles for a free trip, D2 swears she will never again get on a Delta flight.</p>
<p>The best way to avoid getting bumped is to check in on-line as soon as allowed (24 hours prior to flight departure), making sure you have a seat assignment.</p>
<p>We travel quite a bit - mostly on American since that is where we have status, but also United and US Air - and we have experienced everything from cancelled flights, delays, big delays causing a missed connection, and lost luggage. The best way to deal with any of this is to remain calm and not irritate the ticket agent, gate agent, or whoever it is in the position to help you. I remember once husband and I were sprinting down the terminal in San Diego to catch a flight home. Husband does not like to “wait,” so he never abides by the airlines’ guidance to get to the airport super early. The gate agents had just closed the door to the jetway when we got to the gate, and all we could do was burst out laughing! They appreciated that enough to open the gate and let us on the plane. I’m sure if we had raised a stink, they would have told us they were so sorry, nothing they could do.</p>
<p>Update: United told my husband that they booked a Delta flight for him and our son at 3:30 a.m. They didn’t.</p>
<p>DH and DS arrived at the Delta counter at 7:00 a.m. and where told that United didn’t pay for the booking!!!</p>
<p>They are now driving to Milwaukee to catch a flight on U.S. Airways. </p>
<p>My husband is on the phone with our attorney to try and figure out a way to get our money back from the United flight and the U.S. Airways flight that we just paid for. </p>
<p>HockeyMom63- They weren’t bumped from today’s flight. We received a phone call at 1:30 this morning telling us the flight was cancelled. We checked in online last night at 10:00 p.m.</p>
<p>Ek, in my experience, Alaska rarely bumps passengers, because they can actually keep track of how many seats they sell. If your D has an assigned seat, she will be fine. If she does not have an assigned seat, she will be OK, too - it means that they did not sell the seats normally available to their MVPs, so when she checks in, she will get a seat in the “good” rows. I always buy the cheapest available fare, because it does not matter to me if I get to seat in row 16 vs row 6.</p>
<p>Airlines are all run as extremely lean operations now - no extra seat capacity, no extra planes on standby, etc. This type of problem isn’t going away, and will only get worse as they approach 100% capacity on 100% of flights.</p>
<p>During the major snowstorms this winter, there were people who couldn’t rebook for a week, because there just weren’t seats available.</p>
<p>It’s no excuse for crappy customer service however.</p>
<p>Man, this is scary. We are flying to Midland TX for my brother in law’s funeral, next week. Flights have been carefully booked to allow my nearly blind father in law to fly from Buffalo & meet my daughter & her husb in Boston & then fly to TX. For us it is Philly > Dallas > Midland. For sister it is Peoria > St Louis > Midland. </p>
<p>Then returning to our homes on Sunday. </p>
<p>The family has been having a terrible enough time as it is; the death was unexpected and unpleasant, involving the ICU etc etc. I sure hope we do not have bumps & cancellations. </p>
<p>This is why we prefer to drive whenever we can.</p>
<p>“This is why we prefer to drive whenever we can.”</p>
<p>No kidding. By the time I park my car, go through the security line, etc. I could be as far from my house as Portland, OR! Can’t drive to HI, unfortunately.</p>
<p>OP, I hope you get more than the price ypu paid for those tickets out of *^&$% United!</p>
<p>And this is why I didn’t let DD even consider attending a college that would require air travel. The time, the money, the aggravation–just not worth it when there are hundreds of great schools within driving or train travel distance.</p>
<p>MommaJ, I agree but I still think that a 5-hour direct flight is much safer than a 5-hour drive that involves mountain passes (yup, those were DD’s choices, and I’m glad that she picked the former).</p>
<p>Although I have always heard great things about Southwest, my daughter missed a scheduled tour on Monday because the friend she was traveling with had her Southwest flight home cancelled. They ended up getting her booked on an earlier flight, but it ruined their plans for the whole day. We were pretty annoyed, as we had spent a lot of money on airfare, 3 hotel nights, food, etc. and my daughter didn’t even get to do what she went up there for.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to minimize the hassle and inconvenience here, but an attorney? At this early juncture? Seems an over-reaction if you ask me.</p>
<p>With rare exception, EVERY airline is guilty of last-minute schedule changes. Some wouldn’t even call in the middle of the night to alert you - you find out when you arrive at the airport. At least you had some notice.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the fine print of the Contract of Carriage basically means that you are entitled to transportation from Point A to Point B, subject to change. Your best recourse, if United was unable to re-schedule your son and husband at a time that worked, was a full refund of the fare paid (something you are entitled to ask for and they should provide). They are not required to re-book you on another airline and nowadays I almost never see airlines do this anymore. They simply refund what you paid and you are free to find another carrier…but it will cost you whatever the current price is.</p>
<p>That’s just a fact of the airline industry today. Unless the carrier code-shares with another carrier that flies the same routes, chances of re-booking on another carrier without paying more isn’t going to happen.</p>
<p>Its highly doubtful you’ll get any more than a refund of the United fare, and maybe some coupons for future travel as goodwill.</p>
<p>How much will attorney fees cost? Will it be worth the cost of an attorney to only be handed a refund? And likely, that is about all the airline will be willing to offer.</p>
<p>My D’s been flying back and forth to school since the Thanksgiving she was 14. Boarding school, you know? First from Dulles, now from a hopper-airport. She’s gotten awfully good at working with and sometimes around the system. The only problem she’s ever had was our fault for getting her to the airport too late one day and she couldn’t check her bag. I know she can handle the ups-and-downs – and now she tells us what to do.</p>
I always buy the cheapest available fare, because it does not matter to me if I get to seat in row 16 vs row 6.</p>