United — Local services in Denver

Dates of Incident: December 16th/17th

Flying on United Airlines was the worst experience ever. It all started in Atlanta, we arrived 2 hours early due to bringing back the rental car by 6pm. We didn’t mind waiting for our flight around 8pm but due to mechanical issues with the plane coming in we were delayed by 20 mins. We panicked a bit because our flight in Denver was taking off at 9:55pm and we would arrive there at 9:52pm mind you the ticket did not have what gate we were on because the United attendant at the ticket booth didn’t check us in for our connecting flight. We get on the plane it is a smaller one with only two seats on each side but then we sit for about an hour and half waiting for them to find a route around the storm which I understand the smaller plane cant go through the storm to be safe. When we are up in the air the captain says we have paused services because of turbulence. WHAT!? Not only have I been sitting on the plane for 3 almost 4 hours at this point I can’t even get water!! So, the sweet flight attendant who overheard my frustrations asked me what she could get me to drink. OMG, Tina (our flight attendant) you are the only reason why our flight was bearable get that girl a raise and recognition!! But then because we had to go around the storm, we had to make a pit stop in Chicago for fuel that took about 30 to 45 mins. We get back in the air and that turbulence was the worst I had ever felt please take those small planes out of commission get the bigger ones. At this point we had missed our connecting flight in Denver to Boise by a long shot, but the other flight attendant had told my father-in-law that they would hold the plane for us. Yeah….um…. not for 3 hours sir thank you very much! So, they tell us to speak to the lady at the desk right out-side our terminal so they can get us on the next flight out of there. We arrived at gate T14 around 1am she was the most unpleasant person to speak with. She was not understanding of what we had just gone through just to get there and have her tell us that there isn’t a flight until 9am. Mind you at this point we realized every place in the airport was closed and we hadn’t eaten anything since we left Atlanta. We stayed at the airport for 7 hours with nothing to eat or really to drink except water fountains but most of them were out of order because of construction. She complained very rudely about how she had to stay an extra 30 mins to help us, oh I’m sorry ma’am but we are stuck in Denver when we were supposed to be on our way to Boise home. She had no compassion for anyone at that point there were a few other people that had missed their connecting flights. I have worked in the customer service industry so I try my hardest to be respectful because I do appreciate them for what they all do for us especially around the holidays but that was no way to treat us. Then she tells us that it was not their fault that we missed out connecting flight, but last I checked the plane had mechanical problems originally which in turn made us miss our connecting flight. She couldn’t find our reservation because the lady in Atlanta had not checked us in for our connecting flight but yet that wasn’t their fault either!? So, she had to try to find a new flight for us when she does only two of us were going to be able to be on the flight and the third on standby. Both my father-in-law and husband had to work that Tuesday and was reprimanded for missing that day. The next flight was not even until 6pm later that day. We are very disappointed on how we were treated when all we wanted to do was get home. But we are thankful that we are home safely we appreciate the concern from the captain and flight attendant Tina, but the ones that work at the airports need to be retrained on customer service and how to do their job efficiently so that less problems like this happen. We will no longer be flying United because of the horrible customer service and the how unreliable the...

Government shortages sadly caused our first leg of a long three-leg trip to be delayed out of Nashville. The planes were grounded because of lack of staff and grounded again because lack of air traffic controllers. The gate agents gave us false hope when I expressed my concerns if we’d have enough time to make the connection in Denver. Two separate agents assured me “they see the connections just as we see them here” … “especially on these long international flights, they’ll hold it”. Even our pilot informed us there were 120 of us on the flight who were making connections so he was doing all he could to get us there as fast as possible. If only HE were running the show…because this was the last time I was shown any effort to accommodate me as a paying customer. We spent the entire flight monitoring the app and any updates from sms. We were set to land at 11:20 with our flight out of a gate only a few steps away from our arrival gate leaving at 11:25. We were comforted by staff that surely they would be waiting for the few of us trying to make the trip to Japan. There were three of us sitting in the back—we trauma bonded over the delay…one even saying he would run ahead and make sure they knew we were hurrying. How defeated we felt when, as we were taxiing in, we received an update that our flight had in fact already left—FIVE MINUTES EARLY. Who does that? When we landed I immediately turned to the agent who was getting ready to board the plane we just flew in on, and asked “we just missed our connection, is there an agent desk nearby where I can try to reroute?” He laughed at me—he LAUGHED, the first indication of what was about to go down. He said “there’s no person you can talk to here, you have to go through the app”. You know all those horrible videos of passengers losing their cool, security having to come in to an escalated situation? Well those few cases have now diminished United customer service to an app…not to mention it saves United a ton of money. So I found a seat to try to get a handle of this situation, still reeling from the thought that our carefully planned out flight had left without us. After a long text chat with an agent with limited power, I was rerouted and rebooked but she instructed me to go to a desk at check in in the main terminal to confirm and check in to my new flight booked for tomorrow as well as change my seats (why couldn’t she change my seats?). She also told me to go to baggage claim to request my baggage. When I went to the check in area, the throughly overworked and desensitized agent basically tried to push me out of her work zone by basically pushing buttons on the kiosk for me and printing out my boarding passes…not hearing my problem: that I had already been rebooked through an agent on the app and she had instructed me to speak to an agent to change my seats. When it finally dawned on her what I needed she pointed me to the special services agent. There was one person working there. She did her best and offered her condolences; I greatly appreciated her empathy for once on this already difficult day. She did enlighten me however that that Japan flight was always full and that it was also oversold to make up for the seats that had been purchased but not formally checked in, or seats not selected. This meant there was always a lot of standbys. That’s when it clicked. United runs a racket on this one flight at least (how many others does it use this same protocol?). They oversold, they indeed DID see we were running late for connections but instead of waiting a few minutes for their rightfully sold seat-paying customers, they greedily took the money of those who were on standby or oversold, filled their plane and LEFT EARLY. This left a group of frantic passengers who they could now keep their money and have them take the loose unsold seats in the next flight—which were the typical middle seat economy. ...

The only reason i even a single star here is because i have too to create this post:

Another United BS experience... random venting but useful info.... possibly funny

I buy a ticket off Travelocity (i typically like using Travelocity to price and occasionally purchase tickets) but standardly I fly Southwest Airlines because they are AWESOME and there is very rarely any BS to deal with... PLUS you get two bags FREE and a carry on PLUS your personal item... so generally no need to stressed out about what insane feeing (or just not letting you fly at all) the airline is going to sneak attack on you!! However, SW can be pricy when needing last minute flights... soooo...

Sooo... I (very) hesitantly hit the purchase button for this United flight (with all the news lately i wasn’t stoked this was my only affordable option) but bc it was half the price of SW and non stop to Ontario Cali, to go work with my business partner and BFF Mandy, I went ahead and bought it (trying to save our business a few extra bucks $$) I get to the airport with plenty of time for carry on travel... wait in a long line to print my ticket at the kiosk...

.... Oh what is this...?? I can’t proceed to print my ticket, so i ask for help...

A less than chipper person for United is assisting me, she informs me: You can’t take a carry-on bc you purchased a entry level coach ticket...

Me: wait what? ok well i’ve seen this before! Frontier sucks like this too... got it... ok well i will pay the fee to bring my carry-on... i just want to get moving to my flight!

United rep: Umm no you can’t pay to bring you carry-on... it’s not allowed for your COACH ticket (she kept emphasizing my lowly coach ticket) you will have to check your bag (side note, it’s a tiny little carry on suitcase... like you’d be really proud of how light i packed for 5 days!)

Me: ok let’s do that then!

United: Oh nope you can’t do that you need to have 45 mins before your flight to check a bag (it is now 10:40 my flight is 11:20 so technically I’m good but she won’t do it)

Me: are you kidding me? I can’t upgrade my coach ticket to allow me a carry-on and i can’t check my bag bc you won’t let me through 50 mins before my flight?? I explain how i bought my ticket and that there wasn’t any indication of this.... she is not listening anymore

I get moved to a different line (another lengthy wait) and the woman at the counter was ben less pleased to be doing her job today.... *side note: I love how they have a job bc we fly yet they treat us like it’s the effing DMV

United rep at the counter: .... all kinds of BS excuses and protocol no one understands or cares about, gets frustrated over that this is supposed to be a service and yet there truly is NO service from United EVER

Me: Frantically trying to get a flight that won’t completely put my day in jeopardy and totally mess up Mandy’s day... so I guess I just bend over and take it bc what are my options??

Now here at the airport for 4 hours.. because that is how i could best be spending my precious and hard to find time these days....

Is there way worse things happening out in the world today... yes... but consider this a service announcement and my attempt to get the attention of those that should care about how their terrible way of doing business is a major stress to those depending on it.

#UnitedAirlines 👎🏽 #DoTheRightThingByYourCustomers

I won’t fly your airlines again and this post will go everywhere i can post it!!

I own and run three small businesses if i treated my people like United treats their customers i would be out of business in no time!! How do we get their...