YAY United Airlines

When I booked my plane tickets to follow The Go-Go’s on their farewell tour I booked 2 tickets with United and 2 tickets with American Airlines.

When The Go-Go’s had to cancel their tour I contacted both airlines to cancel my tickets. Let’s contrast and compare customer service shall we?

AMERICAN AIRLINES:
-Charged me $150 to cancel each ticket.
-One of my tickets was only for $75 so it wasn’t worth it to cancel so I just had to let that one go.
-When I asked if I could “gift” that ticket to a organization like a children’s hospital or some other non-profit group they said “No. We don’t do things like that.”

UNITED AIRLINES
I cancelled both my tickets with United via their online cancellation service and guess what? They are giving me 100% of my $$ back because I purchased online with my credit card AND they sent me a really nice letter.

Lesson learned? When booking any future tickets in America I will only be purchasing ticktets from UNITED AIRLINES! Thank you so much UNITED for your awesome customer service!! You ROCK!

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9 Responses to YAY United Airlines

  1. Natalie says:

    And then airlines wonder why people don’t travel with them. They have some of the worst customer service I have ever seen.

  2. Kristi says:

    United also serves vegan cookies on long haul flights (if you pre-order a vegan special meal) They are chocolate chip Miyoki cookies and they are delicious!

  3. shawna says:

    it’s good united has good customer service on the ground cuz their service in the air is HORRIBLE. we flew with to get from australia to canada and back again last year– worst flights of my life and others i’ve talked to have had bad experiences with united too. glad they were so good about refunds.

  4. Alison C. says:

    That’s great info to know about United. I was under the assumption that a $150 cancellation fee is standard. Same thing happened with me – I think Alaska Airlines. I had to cancel and reschedule a flight and they told me they would be adding $150 to my new flight because of this. If i hadn’t rebooked, like you didn’t, I would have just lost the price of airfare, which wasn’t that much. Good tip about the vegan cookies, though! Good to know! (I hate it when you order a vegan meal and the “dessert” is ALWAYS just fruit.

  5. HappieKamper says:

    Continental is good too. They served me vegan breakfast!

  6. Chris says:

    Wow! We had the exact opposite experience with these two airlines.

    We lost a vacation a couple years ago thanks to United. We were scheduled to go from San Francisco to Las Vegas to Florida and finally to the Dominican Republic. Orbitz (DO NOT EVER USE THEM!!) had us on United flights for the first leg and American for the rest. The United gate at the airport had no staff present at all. Even after our plane arrived and was deplaning passengers, there was still no one from United to open the gate and/or meet them. The pilots from that plane were PISSED. Someone finally showed up about 30 mins AFTER our plane was supposed to take off. We only had about 30 min layover in Vegas, so we knew we were screwed before we even got on the plane. But then the plane sat at the gate for about an hour. We had to choose between getting off and losing our vacation or getting stuck in Vegas with no luggage and no reservations for Christmas. We chose to get off.

    Then we spent about 4 hours running around the airport trying to right the wrong. United told us the problem was not theirs and they could do nothing for us, especially refund our tickets. We split up and he stayed on the luggage effort while I went to the American counter to see if they could help us. We spent over an hour with the loveliest ladies ever. Even though they had both clocked out for the night, they stayed well past midnight and undertook heroic measures to try to get us to the DR some how, some way. They were willing to book us direct to NYC in first class, but there was only one seat. They tried to get us (and our luggage) to Jamaica (their home) instead. They tried every possible route to get us to the DR, but nothing was working. Ultimately, they decided amongst themselves to refund our money despite that being absolutely against policy since we had non-refundable tix booked through Orbitz. And, they did all this despite all the blame for the f**ck up being United’s. The whole time they were working, we were on the phone with United who continued to deny any fault and offered absolutely no help at all.

    Since then I’ve avoided United like the plague. But I think post 9-11, all the airlines have taken a huge tumble in customer service and flying just isn’t fun anymore. I always feel like a suspected criminal and I loathe the airport.

    The good news is we were so sad to be stuck in cold, rainy San Francisco when we were supposed to be in the tropics that we decided to make ourselves feel better with a new kitten! Dr. Milton Vanilli Slushball Marcleton has been a joy and he made all our sad memories glad instead. Plus, his goodness lasts so much longer than a 2-week vacation!

  7. sarah says:

    Yikes. What a story … 🙁

    I need to see some photos of Dr. Milton Vanilli Slushball Marcleton please. 🙂

  8. Chris says:

    Slushie is the white one in these pics. His older sister, Cilantro (Cilly for short) is the all-black beauty.

    http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=66649&id=662304592&l=f05b618ddc

    This is Slushie’s very fancy dance:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCM57ZfvmgE

    We LOVE him dearly!

    The Dr. in his name was for the Dominican Republic. Milton was his name at the SPCA and when shortened to Milli, made Vanilli an obvious choice. Slushball was because he’s not quite a pristine white snowball, he’s got a bit of gray, gravel, slush on his head and tail. And Marcleton is our family name. It’s a mouth full, but it’s all necessary!

    I still owe you pics of Belinda’s head! Please hold…

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