SS: My wifes day

[ufcrusher]

My wife is on the East coast on business and was supposed to fly from Dulles to Philadelphia on United. Unfortunately the weather caused the flight to be delayed......for 5 hours before it was finally cancelled. United then refused to do anything for her other than refund the trip which meant that she had to find alternative transportation. The lovely people at United informed her that she could get her luggage at the carousel and after waiting for over an hour finally informed all of the people waiting that their luggage was not being offloaded and would be sent up on another flight. She asked for it to be delivered to her hotel and United refused claiming that since it was weather they werent responsible. When she explained that she had tried to get her luggage and was denied by Uniteds action they told her its not our fault.

Of course, this meant that my wife would have to go to the airport in Philly to get her luggage. The problem is that she left Dulles at 9 or 9:30 pm and made it to Philly in about 2.5 hours. When she called the airport to see if her luggage was there she was informed that they were closed and she wouldnt be able to get her luggage, even if its there. So now she is in Philly with a business meeting tomorrow morning, with no clothes other than the one she managed to grab while waiting for the luggage to originally be taken. Her cell is almost dead and her charger is in the luggage. She was supposed to have a business dinner tonight, but that didnt happen. She still needs to get her luggage tomorrow as well as her rental car (her co-worker was the one who got the first rental car today)

By the time she arrived in Philly it was already too late for her to call my family to see if they had any clothes/car she could use. What a day.

On top of this, she normally refused to fly United due to the last time I had to drive all the way up to Burbank from San Diego to retrieve her when United had issues. This was after a similar day from hell.

Hopefully tomorrow will go better. When I last spoke with her (at 2 am Eastern) she had finally gotten some dinner and was about to go to sleep. She has to be at the meeting at 8 am tomorrow.

[look_ma]

Holy crap, that is a bad bad day. Didn't realize united were such pains in the but. That is just not right, not taking care of your own customer. Write a letter to united, I cannot see them finding this kind of thing acceptable. And if they do seem koshier, then F-em.

[Jenny]

yeah, def. write a letter, then if they don't respond, hell, I dunno, complain to someone. That just sucks bad. :(

Hope everything else goes smoothly for her!

[cheapie]

when you write the letter, don't focus on the weather-related delay. focus on the luggage problem. ask for a specific remedy. miles. free ticket. upgrade coupon. etc.

[Merlin]

Don't fly United. I've screwed by them more than once. Sometimes you are better off paying a few dollars more to get on a different airline. And I swear that the level of service on US flag carriers has gone right to hell over the past three years. Personally I spend most of my time on Delta now. I live in Atlanta and I don't mind being late - as in every flight is late.

God our airlines are a joke. Qantas - now that is an airline. :thumb:

[nickel]

i think service just keeps getting worse and worse at our airlines.

[cheapie]

i have great service on northwest. virtually all of my flights are on time and they rarely misplace my luggage.

[Merlin]

i think service just keeps getting worse and worse at our airlines.
Not only does the service seem to get worse but they seem to care less. And that's the part that irks me. They screw up - you get mad - and their attitude is like "so what? get lost pal" They just don't care anymore.

[mcs328]

So they sent her luggage to Philly but not the passengers?? I would complain..what a nightmare.

[ufcrusher]

We are definitely writing a letter to them....especially since it was their fault that they wouldnt offload the luggage when they cancelled the flight. One thing I forgot to mention was that her co-worker who was on the flight was an ex-united pilot! Even that fact didnt aid them in any way.

[Markel]

I got a $100 voucher from United after I sent a complaint. I was flying back from France and none of the electronics on my seat (light, audio, movies - it was a 777 that let you watch on the lcd screen in the seat back in front of you) worked, and there weren't any empty seats nearby.

My opinion with US airlines is that no matter which ones you fly, eventually you'll have a bad experience.

[guiseppewv]

I have had great service on Delta and AirTran. Delta cancelled my filight back from NO last Mardi Gras which ended up being a good thing b.c I would have never made it to the plane in time. Even after the 55 min time change b/c my flight was canceled I made it to the gate 5 min before take-off. Delta upgraded me to first class which was sweet. I have never had any problems on Air Tran. They are friendly and they seem to always run ontime. Plus they have cheap fares.