When a couple en route to their wedding in Las Vegas arrived at the airport yesterday, they found that United had no record of their ticket, in spite of having paid for a ticket and receiving a confirmation number from the airline.

The couple, set to be married on Thursday, had booked the entire package — including their hotel room and wedding — two months ago at a cost of around $6,000 (That’s Canadian dollars, being that they are from Nova Scotia).

But at the airport in Halifax, United had no record of them being on the flight to Newark, where they were supposed to connect to Vegas.

It took three hours to convince United they were actually supposed to be on a flight, but by then their flight had long since departed. So United tried to put them on an Air Canada flight.

But that flight never got off the ground as fog conditions resulted in numerous delays in Halifax.

It ultimately took eight hours to book the couple on a flight for today, meaning the couple not only lost a day of their Vegas vacation, they had to spend it banging their head against a wall of ineptitude.

United has no idea how the goof happened, and even though the airline has said it will issue some sort of compensation to the soon-to-marry couple, it hasn’t ruled out the fact that it’s not United’s fault.

“We see they had a reservation (that) for some reason, they weren’t ticketed (for),” a United rep tells the Herald News. “I’m not certain whether we made a mistake or they made a mistake.”

There you have it, the 21st Century version of “The Customer Is Always Right” — “The Customer May Be Right But Why Should We Publicly Admit That?”

United (almost) breaks weddings too [ChronicleHerald.CA]

Thanks to Leslie for the tip!

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