If you follow us on Instagram you may have viewed our story of how our plans of going to Portugal were ruined by a pinch of United Airlines customer service and a dash of bad weather, but mostly by United. 🙄
For those of you that didn't see our story on IG, here is a detailed recap about our experience:
Leaving our Denver base we were going to be flying to Brussels, Belgium with an hour layover in Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD). Little did we know our hour layover was going to turn into a 30 hour layover. We departed DIA on time and everything was fine until we came up to the approach of our layover city. The Captain told us, over the intercom, that United was having some confusion and we were going to have to fly around until we figured it out. We flew around until we were almost out of fuel. We diverted to Greensborough, North Carolina, this was the safest way, is what the Captain stated. We then were told we wouldn't be able to land for a while because a bad storm had rolled in and the airport was "closed". They assured us no flights were leaving or landing, therefore connections should be ok. A 3 hour flight turned into a 6 hour one. I never feel cooped up on a flight but I did on this one, we couldn't get off the plane fast enough.
Finally, we arrived to IAD. We were told there would be attendants ready to help those with connections, but of course there wasn't anyone. We had ask the gate attendant preparing to board the next flight if he could see if our flight was still there. He searched our flight for us and told us to run to gate B34, B34 was a train and a 20 minute walk away from where were, so we ran, in hopes of still catching our flight. We arrived to the gate and found that that wasn't the correct airline and no one was there. We went to the monitors to see if we could find any signs of our flight, no luck there! Finally we went up to a gate attendant that we happened to pass, asking if perhaps she could look up the status of our flight and which gate it was "leaving" out of. She said we needed to go to United, but United told us to go to Brussels Airways we explained to her after stopping to ask another United attendant in our mad rush.
It doesn't make sense that neither airline knew where we should go, especially since Brussels Airways is operated by United, stated on our ticket. We were sent on a run around for about 45 minutes just to hear from a gate attendant that wasn't working for either airline that our flight had left on time. Why in the world could United not tell us that it left already? And why were we told the airport was "closed" and no flights were landing our leaving but our flight left on time? So now that we knew our flight had left already we talked to the information desk, which seemed to be the most knowledgable and helpful out of everyone we spoke to in our panic. He told us to talk to the airline we came in on, at the customer service desk, on the other side of security. So we exited the secure area and found the desk we were told to go to.
We stood at the front of the line for 45 minutes before being helped. There were three employees at the desk, each helping older couples. They seemed to know them or were close to them because they kept hugging them and chatting. I'm glad they can be close to their customers, but the line was building up, and none of them seemed to care. Finally, it was our turn to go up to the desk. We explained what happened and gave our booking confirmation numbers. We told her we needed to get to Brussels within the next 30 hours to make another flight we had to Portugal on RyanAir. I asked her to put us on the next flight at 10:20 if possible, she told me there wasn't another flight for the day. I showed her on my phone that there in fact was another flight in about an hour and a half, so she agreed to look. She told us it was full. I asked if she could put us on a standby list incase something opened up, she called her supervisor over, she told us they don't do standby for international flights. Which I have done before so I don't know why it couldn't be done that day. She booked us on the flight in 24 hours meaning we would lose everything we put into our trip to Portugal. We told the supervisor the situation and she told us that is what we "get for booking on a different airline. She said "Ryanair will understand, stuff like this happens all the time". Our non-refundable flights and hotel could not be rescheduled since Ryanair flies to Lisbon a few days. I contacted them and they didn't understand just like United didn't. There was a flight leaving to Portugal at 10:20pm as well, with Untied, that could have solved all of our problems, but it is "illegal" to be booked on a different flight from the original destination is what we were told by the supervisor. We asked if they could at least help us with a hotel, and of course they couldn't help us with that because of the weather. When I asked her why I have been comped a hotel and dinner due to snow, also with United, she said snow is different. Snow is also weather last time I checked. She gave us a paper that had a number to call for discounted hotels, but as she handed it to us she said "they are all booked, but here you go". There we were stuck at IAD, no place to stay, and a few thousand dollars out of our Portugal trip, and had to pay for another night in Brussels as well as one in Virginia. An adventure off to a ROUGH start.
Having been on hundreds of international flights, I have experienced my fair share of delays and stressful close calls or missed flights, but never have had an airline handle a situation like this. I get he weather was bad, but promising things and not fulfilling them, or not even attempting to trouble shoot a problem and work with us to try to get us there by the time we needed to get there was ridiculous. They had the attitude of "I can't be bothered" and took the laziest way out possible. The customers before us got hugs and long chats, but not us. I have never had an issue with United, even after the stories we all heard about on the news and over social media. But now I get it. I will always do my best to avoid flying them again, which saddens me that an airline would treat customers this way. The weather was an easy way out for them. Rain is out of United's control, but snow isn't. I have experienced a 5 hour delay because of an engine failure, also on United, which seems to be a little out of anyone's control as well, but still something was comped. Policies must have changed recently to do everything in your power to not help customers.
After some tears shed, my friends and I did what we could to salvage the rest of our trip and explored more of Belgium than planned. Hours of planning for this trip wasted, but I embraced the unplanned and tried to look at the brighter side, after all I love spontaneity, under different conditions usually.
Thank you for reading. Please comment and share experiences you may have had with United!