United Airlines Ordeal- Please Hide my email address

Hello:

Please post the account of what United airlines did to me Sunday September 17, 2006. I hope this will encourage other victims of United to speak out.

Thank You.

I arrived at LAX shortly before 1:00PM for my 2:00PM flight to San Francisco, and after waiting in line at curbside, I was informed by the skycap that the deadline for checking in luggage passed while I was waiting in line.

I went in to try to check in at the desk, but I was forced to go "Standby" on the next flight at 3:00PM. Little did I know that I would be a prisoner in the Twilight Zone for the next 7 -Yes! Seven- Hours shuffling between Gates only to be told repeatedly that due to the flights being oversold, I would have to wait for the next flight.

I had plenty of company. Apparently I was still Number 60 on the waiting list at 8:00PM (even though I had come in before 1:00PM) and United was unable to let more than 2 people go standby on any of the subsequent 6 flights and none on most.I counted about 20 people in the group going from Gate to Gate trying to get on.

Mind you , this was not a Holiday weekend, just an ordinary Sunday.

Finally, at 8:00PM, I stood in line at the customer service (There's an oxymoron if I ever heard one) and along with another passenger, demanded that my ticket be "pushed" to another Airline (Frontier in my case)

I had to go to another Terminal, fly on Frontier Airlines (who apparently do not oversell their flights as much as United does) because United employees kept telling me the chances of me geting on a United SF flight that night were slim to none. I live 70 Miles away from SFO, so I did not get home until 1:30AM, and had to go to work early the next morning.

I would not have gotten home that night had I not demanded to be sent on Frontier. No United employee even suggested it despite my repeated pleas for help getting home. And to add insult to injury, when I arrived in SFO, my luggage was still in LAX, the United Luggage desk in SFO made me put in a lost luggage claim with Frontier (rather than delivering it themselves) and as a result I did not get my luggage back until late the next day. I had refrigerated medicine in one of the boxes, and I do not know if they were subjected to overheating.

I can understand having to go on standby because of some 45-minute rule, but having to be held prisoner for seven hours is inhumane. All I got from any United employee was indifference thinly disguised as so-called "caring"

And when I repeatedly tried to call with a complaint, it was impossible to get any representative outside India.

I don't know if any of your readers have ever had the pleasure of getting anything resolved with an Indian CS rep (of any company). It is next to impossible to get anything resolved: they will NOT forward you to a supervisor until you practically badger them into it, and even when they do, the Supervisor is merely a slightly more polished version of the person you just spoke to. No authority to satisfy you whatsoever. All you ever get are useless apologies and meaningless platitudes.

When I got an Email reply from one of their CS Reps, he offered me a $100.00 certificate with restrictions. I replied that it was a slap in the face and that I will be posting a detailed version of my ordeal on this and other similar websites, hoping to encourage others with similar experiences to speak out and maybe get satisfaction.

The fact remains that United aggressively oversells their flights in pursuit of the almighty Dollar. They could care less about the welfare of their customers -or should I say victims- and that they have lives and jobs they need to get to.

Comment On This

A lot of this sounds so familiar. Here is my letter of what happend to us:

April 6, 2010

United Airlines

Customer Relations

P. O. Box 66100

Chicago, IL 60666

Re: Terrible Customer Service

To Whom It May Concern:

Our group (5 females) was stranded in Chicago Airport for 10+ hours on 3/15/10. Upon our arrival at 9:00 a.m., we found out (only by looking at the monitors) that the connecting flight (UA7594) scheduled for 10:00 a.m. to LaGuardia had been canceled.

We proceeded to the assigned gate to find no one there to assist us or explain to us what would be done. We went to another United gate next to it to try to get help and were told they could not help us, and that we needed to find a customer service counter. There are no �live bodies� to talk to. And when we complained to the United employees, we were told, that like everywhere else, United had cutbacks in staff and there was nothing that they could do.

The customer service monitors would only show that the flight was canceled, but did not tell us what we needed to do next. We finally found a random United employee at another gate that looked up the next available flight and told us that he would then put us on the standby list (among 80 others). Not sure why we had to request to be put on a standby list and why United didn�t already do this, since they are the ones that canceled the flight. The next available flight with seats to any of the NYC airports, would not be until 6:00 a.m. the next morning. He said for us to go to the next LGA flight gate and wait. We were told at that gate to not get in line and to just sit and wait and they would call us to the counter. Never happened! We continued this process of going from gate to gate, to only be told that we would not be put on, but to just go to the next LGA flight gate. At each new gate, I would wait in line and talk to the United employee and was told there still were no available seats to any of the NYC airports. Finally, because I continued to ask at each gate, they remarkably found 5 seats on a flight to Newark that would leave at 6:30 p.m. This was at around 2:30 p.m.

When we asked about our luggage (since it had already gone to LGA), they ASSURED us it would be delivered to our place in Manhattan once we reached our final destination. We could not file a claim on the luggage to have it sent to the Manhattan location, even though we had someone there to receive it, until we landed in Newark.

Now, the real fun begins!!! We have already lost an entire vacation day in NYC since we did not arrive in Newark until 11:00 p.m. (the 6:30 p.m. flight got delayed to 7:30 p.m.). We filed the luggage claim at Newark Airport and were told that the delivery service ran 24-hours a day and we would have the luggage soon!

We called the �800� number given to us on the luggage claim for another 19 HOURS!! Each time we called, and we called at least 8-10 times, we were ASSURED that the luggage had already left LGA and was en route. We were promised delivery by 3:00 a.m., then 8:00 a.m., then by 12:00 noon, then 2:00 p.m., then 4:00 p.m., but DEFINITELY by 6:00 p.m.! We asked to speak to a supervisor each time and were told that he/she was with someone and would have to call us back within 15-20 minutes. We NEVER received a call back from ANYONE throughout the entire 19 hours!!! We were LIED TO CONTINUOUSLY!!

We understand that the reason (which was never given to us) for the initial flight cancellation might not have been United�s fault, but getting us our luggage could definitely have been handled more professionally by United Airlines!

Also, to add to the problem with locating our luggage, the clerk at Newark that wrote up the claim, wrote one of the numbers wrong and we kept having to re-explain this to the folks that answered the �800� number. And, by the way, we had a terrible time understanding these employees due to the extreme foreign accent! I kept asking for a number to call LGA directly, so that I could confirm that the luggage had actually left the airport. At this point, we were willing to take a taxi and go and get it ourselves. I think the time is only about 30 minute from where we were staying to LGA. They would only give me the 800 number. I finally called a United Airlines customer service number and demanded a local number to call, which she finally gave me. I called directly to LGA and the person answering the phone was very confused as to how I got the number, but did get me to someone there that did actually look into the problem and called me back. But at this time (around 4:00 p.m.), there was not much that the guy could do but confirm that it had left there and called the delivery service to confirm that they were running behind and that we would have the luggage by 6:30 p.m., at the latest.

We received our luggage at 6:40 p.m. on 3/16/10, which meant we had to spend over 48 hours in the same clothes and did not have some of our needed medication, which we explained to them numerous times. They would just apologize and say that they understood our frustration.

Due to losing an entire day of our vacation, we were able to reschedule our return flight to a later time so that we would have more time on our final day. This actually went smoothly and we were not charged an extra fee for the flight change. Guess who the original return flight was with . . . DELTA not United!! The Delta representatives were very understanding and even lowered our checked luggage fee. LOVE DELTA!!

I can�t tell you how very disappointed we are with United�s customer service and ALL FIVE of us plan on telling everyone our story! I guess you get what you pay for since United was offering the best rates at that time. I hope that someone will actually read this letter and try to improve on your overall service!