United Sells Family's Tickets To Someone Else, Ruins Once-In-A-Lifetime Vacation, Then Won't Admit It To Insurance Company
Even for evil airline stories, this one may shock you. How about:
- Holding $5,000 in tickets from a family for six months, then telling them the day before that the flight has been canceled;
- When confronted with the fact that the flight hasn't been canceled, telling the family that the reservation has been lost;
- Finally admitting that they've bumped the family from the flight and were lying about the cancelation and the lost reservation;
- Offering replacement seats on multiple planes and days, splitting the family up on different flights and depositing them at different islands;
- Offering to get them there 5 days into a 7 day vacation, part of which was scheduled to spend time with a family member who was dying in a hospice in Hawaii;
- Refusing to write a letter on the family's behalf so that they can collect their insurance payment on the house they rented but never used.
How could United mess up a trip so badly? The mother who arranged all of it, Anita Cabral, suspects it has to do with the bottom line:
Cabral has a theory for this shabby treatment: fuel prices.
Between January and June, as the oil industry mounted its historic shakedown of consumers, the price of those tickets tripled. The folks who paid the most got to fly.
The columnist who wrote about the Cabrals' problems said he called United directly for a response, and was never called back.
"Bad airline stories are nothing like this" [Sign On San Diego] (Thanks to Randy!)
(Photo: Cubbie_n_Vegas)
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Comments:
This is what has become of US airlines.
They used to not give a crap, but would reluctantly sort it out when the PR shit hit the fan. Now they just don't give a crap PERIOD.
I would definitely file a suit in court towards united to have this brought back to them. Lots more money could be claimed for the whole emotional damages thing about the family member passing away before they got there. This is just ridiculous. I'll try not to fly United merely based on principle. I do the same thing with Circuit City and how they fired people to hire new ones at lower wages and ADMITTED it.
@Nick1693:
Or you need to get from the east to west coast in under five days. sheesh Amtrak is NOT the answer for every airline woe.
Anyway this is one reason I check and recheck in the weeks leading up to my flight. I know you shouldn't have to - but I do it anyway and am always anticipating a problem
I have to give United some credit for at least admitting that they lied.
Everything else though gets a swift visit from a certain Mjolnir weilding god.
@AdvocatesDevil: If people are obnoxious about blaming the consumer, please email me (moderator@consumerist.com) and I'll address it. The "cue to start " comments are becoming tiresome.
Wow, even for an airline, that is just bad. At this point, there's nothing they can do to make it up to the family.... pay back the money and admit they f-ed up BADLY. My sympathies to those folks.
Wow. I hope they something terrible happens to United for this.
I wonder if before flying a particular airline it would be a good idea to buy some stock in it. Not as an investment, per se, but as a bit of defence. A pissed off stockholder, I think, holds more weight than a pissed off customer.
Dear Mods: May we ban the "cue the ______ comments in 3, 2, 1" comments?
This is also, just plain horrible dispicable.
Can we just hand them the golden poo for 2009 right now and get it over with? Forget the EECB, a good old-fashioned CB might be in order.
I really hope this story winds up on the evening news, the front page of google news, drudge, yahoo, msn, in USA Today, and as many other local news outlets as possible. posting it on consumerist is a good start. truly reprehensible behavior on the part of United.
What i want to know is, who told those CSRs to lie? seems unlikely that they'd just do it on their own volition to help the company. what seems more likely is that they were told to lie. if so, by whom? is this a company policy- to lie and claim a flight cancellation or 'computer error' in situations like this? and is that illegal?
Wow, not sure what United can do at this point to save face. We all know the US airlines aren't in the best shape financially but $10k is a drop in the bucket, something they wouldn't have even had to cough up if they just helped the customer with the claim!
I suspect no one at United who has had contact with the requests even knows how to deal with it and as it is passed along it's been sucked into some black hole of red tape.
If you're going to do anything with an airline stock, short-sell it. And I second the CB suggestion, this is just awful.
@OmniZero: I tried paying attention and refusing to fly on airlines that had stories like this...but it seems like EVERY airline has stories like this.
Are there any airlines that are actually worth flying anymore, quality-wise?
this story needs more detail. What kind of tickets were they, how were they paid, when purchased, etc. I.e. were they completely normal tickets, or something else?
That's all just horrible. I can only imagine the amount of frustration, stress and heartbreak involved in a situation like that.
That is absolutely the most disgusting thing I've ever read on the Consumerist (and I've been reading a long time). It seems that most of the time when a company drops the ball this bad and the newspapers/networks come calling, a resolution is brought about quickly. The fact that they ignored the author of that article shows how arrogant and undeserving of any kind of business United is. What an absolute shame.
Losing the tickets doesn't even sound like a huge deal. It's the lying to them and not admitting fault that's the slap in the face, especially since they (presumably) were told about the dying family member
But then again, why should they care? I'm convinced, if you're a sadist, and nothing thrills you more than causing frustration and making everyone's travel a living hell, work for or start an airline. I bet the Joker was based on airline executives. Tell the flight attendants and gate agents and ticket counter employees to be surly, make mistakes, cancel flights, screw with people. Videotape it all and get your kicks
@AdvocatesDevil: Can we please stop with this counting BS, it is not really a comment. IF anyone can find a solid moral ground to blame the OP then feel free however I highly doubt anyone is going to take that stance.
Feel so bad for them... money is one thing but being able to see someone that was dying for the last time is horrible.
Shame on you United...
not see... ^
GO GO GADGET LAWSUIT!
Reading the source article, it sounds like the insurance or airline did refund the cost of the plane tickets, but the $10k for the property rental is the remaining issue. Truly a sad and disturbing turn of events for this family.
This is disgusting and unfortunate for everyone involved. Whether it was a glitch or something malicious, not cool dude.
But at least the father got to spend his last days in Hawaii. If I ever need hospice, remind me that there is one in Hawaii. I might not get to see my family, but hey... some tradeoffs are worth it.
Next up, United murders a kitten and eats a baby as part of their new "Be Evil" company motto.
That's disgusting.
This is beyond horrible. Don't read the link or you will join me in wanting to kill (very slowly and painfully) every single f*ckwad at United who had anything to do with this.
A last chance for her grown children to see their father before he died is gone. There is no just compensation for this. People need to lose their jobs IMMEDIATELY AND PUBLICLY.
I imagine United has a problem writing a letter detailing what happened to the insurance company out of fear of subrogation. They don't want to lay out their screw-up on a silver platter for the insurance company to come back and sue them (which for $10k they would). Further, unfortunately for the OP, their acceptance of a full refund from United likely acted as a settlement of any problems arising from the cancellation. Beyond that, having a plane ticket is not an absolute guarantee of a spot on the flight. The OP was clearly aware of this, as she purchased insurance. It's a sticky situation and I feel bad for the OP. Despite her efforts to protect herself, the insurance company is refusing to pay. For $10k, maybe getting a lawyer involved against the insurance company for denying the claim isn't a bad idea. But in my opinion, the fault over the $10k falls on the insurance company for denying the claim in the first place. It would appear that they are simply trying to get the OP to do the legwork of their subrogation claim.
Horrible story. Protect yourself - get CONFIRMED SEAT ASSIGNMENTS ASAP. Absolutely ridiculous if this is true.
I would generally cut the airline some slack for quick turn tickets. But these folks did everything right right up to leting united have use of their money for what? 4 months.
Yes this is a case where United should get the full brunt of the nastiest lawyer this family can find. I hope that United loses their shirt(s) on this one.
@jamesdenver: checking and rechecking would not necessarily have helped this family. United bumped them for some unknown reason and lied about it; do you think that checking ahead of time would have solved the problem?
@kepler11: Can't help but agree... PLEASE don't confuse this with blaming the OP, but some of those accusations seem fairly vague, even in the linked article... If any of this is true, then my heart goes to the family and United should probably get it's own 60 Minutes special for this one. However, my hope for the family is that they were able to document the daylights out of every step of the misadventure, cause you can bet United's been covering their ass since oh, about when that story got posted.
@kepler11:
If you link to the article, there are some comments there as well. The daughter of the woman posted several comments to clarify...they were full fare tickets purchased 6 months in advance for a group of 8. They actually chose United (and paid more) because it was a larger plane and one of the people going was a little claustrophobic. They were completely normal full-fare should not get bumped in any way shape or form paid-for tickets.
@Triborough: I think that'd only matter if you held enough of the company's stock to have a stake in the company that measured in whole percentage points rather than fractions of a percentage point.
I imagine attorney's fees are out of the question, since the family is already out $10K.
But surely, SURELY there is an eager young attorney out there willing to take this on contingency. Because it would be impossible to seat a jury that isn't 90% ticked off at the airlines. Any jury selected will want to send a little message to the industry....
In answer to someone's question above, yes, I do still find Continental to be a decent airline. They're struggling like the rest of them, but they really do try to make it less painless. They still serve food at mealtimes. In coach. And not just pretzels. It ain't great food, but it's edible and the gesture is much appreciated.
@EricaKane: So if on American Airlines, I used the seat selector online to chose our seats, does that count? I have a printed itinerary, and they just emailed me a reminder that says "see you soon" and encourages me to join their frequent flier club? Now I'm getting concerned after reading all this. Do I need to do anything else? I booked my tickets 3 months ago, and my flight is Monday.
Confirmed seat assignments won't help if the airline gives away your seat.
Since when does handing over money not reserve your seat on the airline, provided the scheduled flight leaves? Isn't that illegal? Isn't that something along the lines of theft?
@RStewie:
It's not really theft when you get your money back. Beyond that, it's fairly well known (or should be) that a ticket isn't a 100% guarantee you'll actually end up on the flight.
Wow, they got hosed and they paid full-fare. Geez, if paying full-fare doesn't guarantee you service, what does?
I mean, do you have to pay a gratuity to everyone in the airline industry just to get on the plane or what?
"Here's a $20 big guy, and be sure to have a soft landing - my hemmroids are acting up."
I propose a consumerist-wide protest. We all poop in a box and ship it to United Airlines, 77 W Wacker Dr, Chicago, Il. 60601. Or e-mail your poo to r.mccarthy@unitedairlines.com. Everyone use a separate box, please. Using the same box is not sanitary.
@Landru:
I suppose what I was getting at is that while a ticket offers a 99% chance that you'll get on the flight (assuming you do your part and the flight doesn't get canceled), there are provisions in the contract of carriage that allow for them to bump you. It's noted that flights are typically oversold, etc. and that you might not get a seat.
they can take them to small claims court (once for each ticket). That will avoid dealing with lawyers. It's not much but a judge will be far more sympathetic than CEO.
@RStewie:
Basically, there's always some risk you'll be bumped. Airlines overbook - it's legal, it's in the contract, and it's not going to change. This is not to defend at all the way United handled this - there's no excuse for lying to people.
I'm surprised, though, that they bumped them the day before - usually, it's a day-of thing, and particularly surprised that they bumped someone with confirmed seat assignments. Also, I'm really surprised there were so few other flights.
My guess is, _their_ flight wasn't cancelled, but another one was, and United found itself needing to combine two flights worth of people onto one plane.
Still, no defense at all for how this was handled.
Thats horrible!!!
And the reason Amtrak is good, unless it requires you go over an ocean...