Well, my flight to Washington (which was zeroed out, coincidentally) was canceled, leaving me on the west coast. United “protected” me on a US Airways flight. Without inserting any jokes, let’s just say that I don’t consider being rebooked on US Airways to be much in the way of protection!
I asked to be rerouted on United, and they offered me a connection through Denver tomorrow morning. Sounds good to me, as one of the flights is sold out and the other flight is filling up quickly. Then I asked if there’s any chance I could get my hotel comped since I’m a 1K. I explained that I knew the situation was completely outside of United’s control, but in the past I was accomodated as a 1K. The first agent that “helped” me looked at me as if I was crazy, and basically said it too. She claimed United didn’t ever provide hotels for any passengers when the weather was at fault. The other agent said basically the same thing. I asked if they could double check, and they did call up a supervisor. The supervisor claimed I got part of the “rule” right — 1Ks do get their hotels taken care of, but only when connecting as opposed to at the origin.
Oh well, at least I’ll be earning points tonight. I’m still hoping for a bump tomorrow, but I’m slowly starting to think that the folks at inventory management have their act together…. ruh oh!
Lucky,
Shouldn't you have tried to connect to any other city? If they'd gotten you to DEN/SFO/LAX/etc and then the connecting flight to WAS was cancelled (very likely), you would've gotten a hotel... yes?
I was able to score a free hotel night at my turn-around point on my MR to LAX this weekend. The plan was to fly the Saturday morning BOS-LAX nonstop followed by the LAX-IAD redeye connecting to the first IAD-BOS flight on Sunday morning.
Just after touchdown at LAX I found a number of voicemails from United. The first stated that IAD-BOS had canceled. The next said that I had been rebooked to the Sunday...
I was able to score a free hotel night at my turn-around point on my MR to LAX this weekend. The plan was to fly the Saturday morning BOS-LAX nonstop followed by the LAX-IAD redeye connecting to the first IAD-BOS flight on Sunday morning.
Just after touchdown at LAX I found a number of voicemails from United. The first stated that IAD-BOS had canceled. The next said that I had been rebooked to the Sunday morning LAX-BOS nonstop. In other words, they wanted me to overnight in LAX.
The RCC agent wasn't aware of the weather rule but said that she would check into it. She called a number of people and eventually ended up talking to a supervisor at the main check-in counter. After about five minutes I was told to head through security to counter 39 (the special services check-in counter) and they would sort it out. By the time I got there, a hotel voucher (Westin LAX) was waiting. Meal vouchers were also quickly produced upon request.
I guess what separates these two issues is the fact that my connecting flight canceled whereas your originating flight had canceled. Incidentally, my originating flight also canceled but that was later in the day after I had the hotel voucher in hand.
A recent copy of the relevant profile is here if anyone is interested:
http://www.flyerguide.com/wiki/index.php/S*UAL/INVOLUNTARY_REROUTE-AMENITY
***HOTEL AND $15 MEAL VOUCHER*** ONLY 1 NIGHTS LODGING AND A $15 MEAL VOUCHER MAY BE PROVIDED FOR FLIGHT INTERRUPTION IF AT LEAST 1 OF THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA ARE MET:
.....
- ANY FLIGHT INTERRUPTION INCLUDING THOSE CAUSED BY WEATHER OR ATC THAT RESULTS IN GS/1K/PASSPLUS/UF/UB OR STAR GOLD (INCLUDING DOMESTIC PORTIONS OF AN INTL ITINERARY) CUSTOMERS BEING UNABLE TO REACH THEIR SCHEDULED DESTINATION BY THE LAST DEPARTURE OF THE DAY.
The verbiage about Star Gold in there is quite interesting as well!
@ mowogo -- Good point. The US flight would have been a redeye, but the agent that switched me to the daytime flight was a different one. So the one at the counter had no clue that I was rebooked on a US flight. Besides, I'm betting a hotel would have been cheaper to UA than sending me over to US....
@ eric -- Happy it sort of worked out, although sounds like you should have received a hotel room. As you said, maybe you can get a voucher of some sort from UA.
@eric -- what reason did they give you, as a 1K, for not covering your hotel?
There's currently a FT thread where someone was -- apparently/hopefully incorrectly -- told that UA's policy of covering weather-related hotel stays has changed.
interesting... I was flying BER-FRA-IAD and my IAD leg was cancelled... but it was cancelled after I was already in FRA... no other options were available to get out of FRA that day, so I had to stay overnight in FRA on my dime. planning on asking UAL for reimbursement... since they flew me to a strange city and I was stuck there! good thing I'm 1K. I wisely talked to the UA agent there...
interesting... I was flying BER-FRA-IAD and my IAD leg was cancelled... but it was cancelled after I was already in FRA... no other options were available to get out of FRA that day, so I had to stay overnight in FRA on my dime. planning on asking UAL for reimbursement... since they flew me to a strange city and I was stuck there! good thing I'm 1K. I wisely talked to the UA agent there and while they said they couldn't do anything for me that night, they did tell me to stay at the same hotel as UA crew, and to tell them I was on a canceled UA flight, which would give me a special rate (and it did). I'm hoping that effort on my part will help make it easier for UA to give me the same consideration... worst case, I'll accept a flight voucher worth twice the cost of the hotel, or 2 SWUs ;-)
I wish they offer me $1,000 VDB tonight flight to SYD and re-route me on QF F, j/k.
SAFE TRAVEL YOU GUYS.
JOSH
Interesting. The last few times I have been in MCO, my MCO-IAD flights were delayed and instead of sending me to IAD, I got booked on the direct MCO-SFO flight and had my hotel comped by MCOCS.
I think the argument path all depends on when the US(eless) flight was. If you weren't going to have to overnight to take it, then unfortunately there is little recourse since you denied the option they offered you to leave as close to your original departure time. Otherwise, I see a decent e-cert in your future. As for IM, during IRROPS I've seen them stop overselling on a flight to ensure they get people out, and avoid having to deal with IDB compensation.