Allow me to regale you with a tale of incompetence, nincompoopery*, and ass-hattery.
Back in May my wife, 9 week old daughter, and myself were scheduled to fly from Denver to Philadelphia to see my younger brother graduate from law school. We had booked our flight several months in advance, knowing we would have an infant we got a direct flight, no stops, no caring for a 9 week old in strange airports. We were scheduled to leave Wednesday at about noon. Around 9 we called to check our flight, “what do you mean canceled? What does canceled for crew problems mean”. Yes indeed dear friends our direct flight was canceled, despite having a later flight, we were booked on a flight through Chicago, great we have a 3 hour layover in O’Hare. Lovely. instead of arriving in Philly with plenty of time to get our car and find our hotel before dark we won’t arrive until after 10 pm.
The staff in Denver were very nice and helpful, especially since my ticket could not be checked in without a supervisor, my wife’s was fine but mine was screwed up. We arrived in Chicago and started our 3 hour layover. Caring for a 9 week old in a strange airport is kind of hard, but we managed. An hour or so into our layover we checked our flight and there was an additional 2 hour delay, now we are here for 5 hours. We grab dinner from the overpriced airport vendors and since O’Hare is way too small for the volume of passengers we sit on the floor outside a shoe shine shop to eat. Fortunately the people in Denver had allowed us to gate check our stroller as well as car seat (remember this detail for later). So the little blackhand was nice and comfy in her stroller even if we were on the floor.
Shortly after we finished eating an announcement comes over the PA, our flight was now delayed another hour. Five minutes after that announcement we got another one, our flight is now canceled. We make our way to the customer service desk, but since we were on the opposite side if the terminal at least 100 people are ahead of us, probably closer to 200. While in line we call United’s 800 number, they were completely useless directing us to wait in the customer service line. While Mrs. blackhand waited in the line I walked up to the desk to see what was taking so long, for a line of at least 250 people, they had 3 agents (there was desk space for 8), while I was watching one of the three left, never to return. So now we have 100-200 angry people ahead of us, 2 agents trying to help them and the line keeps growing.
After almost 2 hours in line we get up to the desk, by now there are only about 50-75 people behind us and an additional 5 agents show up, great work guys. We are told that our flight was canceled due to weather, what weather. The five flights scheduled to leave after ours were made it just fine, 2 of those flights left before our delayed flight time. The agents at the desk said the earliest we could get to Philadelphia was Friday morning. Since my brother’s graduation was Thursday and our return tickets were for Saturday there was not much point. We couldn’t even fly into surrounding airports in time to make the graduation. So we decided to call the trip off entirely and book tickets back to Denver. The earliest flight we could get on was at 11 the next morning connecting through Kansas City.
So now we are stuck in Chicago with no where to stay all because united had “crew problems”. What does “crew problems” mean? Was the pilot still drunk from a night at the strip club, was the co-pilot sick with ptomaine poisoning? Had the attendants gone on strike for this flight only? No one would tell us. Back to the point…
So now we are stuck in Chicago with nowhere to stay, we ask for a hotel voucher. Nope, we cannot have a hotel voucher sine our flight was canceled due to weather. I argued that the only reason we were even in Chicago was because of “crew problems” not weather. That’s when the agent said that ok, maybe it was United’s fault, but she had already given away all their hotel vouchers. Wait, she already gave them all away. to who, they don’t give vouchers for weather related cancellations… After arguing for a few more minutes we just needed to sleep so we started calling all sorts of hotels looking for a room. We finally booked one at a Hyatt, but after waiting over an hour for their shuttle (“It’ll be there in 10 minutes”). After canceling that room we started walking up and down the row of waiting shuttles asking if they have any rooms available. Finally a Comfort Inn driver says they do have one room available, at this point I don’t care where it is as long as we can get some sleep. It is approaching 11 and we are exhausted. The hotel costs a lot more than I like, but at least we have a bed. Of course we have no luggage and we packed our toothbrushes, but we have a bed. As an aside we normally carry on our toothbrushes and a spare pair of underwear, but since this was supposed to be a direct flight in the middle of the day we packed them to have extra room for baby gear.
The next morning comes all too soon. We leave the hotel at 6, they were nice enough to put out their breakfast a few minutes early for us so we could grab a bite to eat. We get t the airport the requisite 90 minutes early. We check in and head through security, the TSA people were very nice when Mrs. Blackhand left her full water bottle in the carry on, they dumped it out for her rather than confiscating the whole bottle. At this point we have my carry on bag, Mrs. Blackhand’s carry on, and a personal bag. As well a a stroller and car seat that we needed to gate check. We went to our gate and asked for the tags to gate check them. The yahoo at the gate gives us one for the car seat, but refuses to give us one for the stroller. He said we could only check it all the way through to Denver. Since we had gate checked them both to Chicago on the way there we knew he was full of shit. So we walked away and went to the customer service desk, where the agent called out to the gate and chewed the guy there a new asshole saying that we could gate check whatever we want. We went back to the gate and asked for the gate check tags again and were once again told that no we could not gate check the stroller, we would have to check it all the way. I, understandably, came unglued on the moron. After asking him in single syllable words if he had just talked to the agent at the customer service desk, if he had understood what she said, and if maybe getting his manager out there would change things. As soon as I invoked his manager he almost threw me the gate check tags and took off the other way.
The rest of the trip was uneventful, if long and tiring. We got home and called United. All told they offered us vouchers for $225 each, since our flights cost almost $300 that irked me. We followed their process to get reimbursed for our hotel room, and sent off an email to their customer service desk. Now 6 weeks later I get a letter from them saying basically, “we’re sorry your trip sucked, but weather is not something we can fix. As far as your hotel costs you are SOL.” I gave them the opportunity to remedy my problems, since they gave me a big middle finger I am doing the only thing I can and letting everyone know how they treat their customers.
So if at all possible I ask you to vote with your money and avoid United.
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