United Airlines

Please, for the love of God, do NOT fly United Airlines if you can at all help it.   At this moment, I am in St. Pete's Beach, Florida, and I *thought* I had a first class ticket home tomorrow afternoon from Tampa to San Francisco with a stop over in Houston, Texas.  Hey!  I purchased a first class ticket!  One would think United would honor that classification.

WRONG!

Getting to the conference from San Francisco to Tampa was no problem.  It's ALWAYS the return trip west bound flights going home that are giving everybody a headache as of late.  When I booked, I looked for flights that were NONSTOP as there is less of a chance of things getting effed up due to air traffic control issues, people not showing up for work, weather, etc.  

Yes, perhaps I sound snobbish to some of you.  Fortunately, I don't care what you think.  I've paid my airline traveler dues for well over 1/3 of a century.  After many, many years of traveling the not-so-friendly skies seated in the plebian-economy-leg-crunching- butt-sniffing seats that happened to be adjacent to screaming babies, I've earned my premier traveler status.  

United Airlines could not care less.  One million miles and United really does not care one lick.  I'm as good as a crated animal in the cargo section to them for all the money and loyalty that has been invested on my end. 

I digress.  Why am I in Tampa?  I'm here for a work conference.  The conference ends tomorrow, which is Wednesday, at noon.  I had my first-class ticket booked to leave Tampa at 3:30.  Perfect.  Or so I thought.

I go to check into my flight using my iPhone during a very dry presentation given by a woman with a monotone voice (think Lilith from Cheers) with lots of numbers and graphs.  It was either get up and get more caffeine or diddle on my phone to keep myself awake.   I decided to diddle on my phone to check into my flight using the "friendly skies" app.

It was then and there I discovered that the flight from Tampa to Houston was just fine and dandy; however, the flight from Houston to San Francisco was cancelled.

Great.

I find out about this.....now?  There was no effort from United to find an alternate flight with another airline or anything.  NOTHING.  The onus was on me to scramble to get on a flight to get me home in time for my work obligations the following day.

Now the fun part.  

I had paid for a first class ticket.  There are no first class seats available for the flight back to San Francisco I re-booked.  I'm in the dreaded middle seat at the back of the plane in the butt sniffing section. Now, again, the onus is on *me* to contact United to get a refund/credit for getting bumped out of a confirmed, first-class ticket that was PAID for a flight I did not choose for a seat that midgets would find uncomfortable.

Here's the rub.  I use their so-called sophisticated artificial intelligence online virtual agent that is supposed to have customer service super powers. 

Nope.  Their crappy AI (which stands for Artificial IGNORANCE in this case - but the ignorance is so REAL) can't handle crediting/refunding customers.  Capitalism at its best.  Policy is ALWAYS for the advantage of the business.  Screw you little customers.  You can be replaced by thousands more little customers.  The pool of little customers is endless......United does NOT CARE ABOUT YOU. 

In the end the super virtual agent told me that I had to call United's 800 number to get a refund/credit issued.  

I called the 800 number.  It told me to call back as the lines were overwhelmed.  <repeat> <repeat><repeat>

Sigh. 

I contacted the super virtual agent again.  Now, I'm supposed to go through United Airlines website to ask for a refund/credit.  

So far, there is nothing super about this virtual agent.  There is no credit/refund for the first class experience that I PAID for and did not receive unless I spend hours on the phone or internet fighting for it.  I have to spend MY TIME fighting for services PAID FOR that were not rendered.  What is MY TIME worth?  

Don't answer because United Airlines does not give a f***. 

Here's my advice:  Avoid flying at all costs.  Zoom into meetings whenever possible.  If you have to fly, do NOT FLY UNITED.  You are better off crawling on your belly for thousands of miles over broken glass.  Trust me.  You will get there before a United flight can.  

At least broken glass will not cancel your flight at the last minute and leave you hanging and not caring how you will get home.