United Despairlines
We’re still stuck in Chicago. Our experience with United Airlines has reached epic levels of ridiculousness. Here’s a rundown of our experience so far:
- Sunday, 7/8 – The start of all the despair. It turns out you have to check in at least 2 hours before your flight for domestic flights nowadays if you have luggage to check in. Because we were 20 minutes late (though we were 1 hour and 40 minutes early), we couldn’t check in our luggage. The eCheck-In Kiosk tried to book us on the next flight, but as stand-by passengers (read: 2nd class citizens).
- We waited at the next gate and discovered that the flight was severely over-booked, so we got bumped off. We were then directed to United Airlines Customer Service.
- We waited in line for about an hour and fifteen minutes, through a shift change, before I gave up and called my dad for advice (since he works for United). He gave me the customer support phone number.
- After talking to a robot for 5 minutes, I found my way to a human being (call center in India). Even though we were told by the local customer service that flights were booked through Wednesday, somehow this agent booked us for a Tuesday evening flight back.
- Tuesday, 7/10 – A severe thunderstorm hits our area, so I began to worry about our flight being delayed. I checked our flight online and everything was kosher.
- Just for kicks, I called the customer support line again to confirm our flight reservations. It turned out that the customer service rep (CSR) did not book us seats–she just waitlisted us. I complained and got seat assignments.
- We get to the airport and reach the gate an hour and a half early.
- An announcement goes out saying that our 6:30pm flight out of Chicago (to LAX) is delayed by half-an-hour. Considering that our connecting flight from LAX to SBP was the last of the day, our window of transfer was now 20 minutes. I informed Myla of the impending sprint.
- We board the plane at 6:45pm and get settled in.
- Another announcement comes on saying that the pilots for the plane haven’t left Dayton yet.
- We are asked to leave the plane and wait in the gate area for further instructions. The flight is now updated to take off at 8:45pm.
- There was no way we were going to make our connecting flight from LAX to SBP, so I complain to the staff. They direct me towards Customer Service. Seeing that the CS line had at least 150 people in it, I decided to call the customer support number.
- After getting through some language barriers (even though we were both speaking English somehow), we get our assignment: Chicago -> San Diego -> San Francisco -> San Luis Obispo. Learning my lesson from last time, I make sure to ask what our seat assignments are. She reads me the entire flight itinerary again. I ask again, she reads the flight itinerary again. I ask once more and finally she understands. She puts me on hold for a few minutes and gets me the seat assignments (I was waitlisted again I’m assuming).
We’ll have our 3rd attempt at going home tomorrow, 7/11 at 3:03pm CST. I’m glad that our friends here are so understanding. They live about 40 minutes outside of Chicago so driving back and forth through traffic to drop us off/pick us up is no small feat. We are in their debt.
Lessons learned:
- If you can help it, don’t check in any luggage! Try to go all carry-on if you can.
- If you can’t help it, check in your luggage at least 3 hours before your flight.
- If you have to deal with customer service, call them: United Airlines – 800-241-6522. If you have to change your reservation, make sure that you get your seat assignments from the CSR. If you don’t, there’s a good chance you’ll just be waitlisted.
- When planning a trip on a holiday weekend, you might just want to leave on a Saturday instead of a Sunday, to beat the rush.
- Also, try to book morning flights so you have more options should you get bumped off.
Wish us luck tomorrow. I’m burning up all of my PTO because of this debacle (PTO I was saving for paternity leave in February ’08).
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Holy cow, man! And here I was sending you a lunch email for today. Sheesh!
you luck will be with… yesss…
[...] Despairlines, Fini Filed under: Rants — Mike @ 11:30 pm The epic saga of our journey home has finally come to an end. Highlights of the final [...]
I have a similar story from my trip in Europe (I’m flying back on 7/16). I ended up getting into Athens, Greece about 1.5 days later than scheduled, and to top it all off, my check-in bag has been lost my entire 3.5 week trip. Bastardos! I’ve had a pair of pants, a pair of boxers, 3 pairs of socks, my shoes and 2 shirts to my name this entire trip. I’ve had to buy shorts, trunks, sandals, etc., etc. on my trip. Really, really, really annoying. They still haven’t found my bag so even when I get back from my trip I’m going to have to deal with the airlines (I think Virgin Atlantic was the one to screw it all up, in London Heathrow) until I’m either reimbursed or they finally find the damn thing. I should list a Rolex in there and act surprised when they can’t find it in the bag – “What?!?! That was a $3,000 watch!” heh.
You must have gotten all of my ill luck. The only problems I had was that our flight was delayed about half an hour due to stormy weather – and then we sat on the runway for another good 45 minutes.
[...] Filed under: News, Rants — Mike @ 6:41 am I haven’t had much luck with United Despairlines the last time I went on vacation. United Airlines CEO Glenn Tilton wants to build on [...]