Well, that was disagreeable.<\/p>\n\n
This is a minor followup to:<\/p>\n
Despite all the weather problems airlines have been a victim<\/span> of late,\nit's pretty obvious that my two canceled flights were not canceled because\nthey were directly affected by weather. Heck, the first flight saw the\nwhole route canceled for four days, as if one could magically know the\nweather four days hence. No, I think<\/span> it was a business<\/span> decision to make\nbetter use of the equipment they had on hand. Probably a smart<\/span> business\ndecision, since Chicago (where that first canceled flight went instead of\nCleveland) is one of their major hubs, but nevertheless one that hurts\nfolks who had a perfectly<\/span> good plane yanked from their route.<\/p>\n\n I didn't complain to them the first time. I have more<\/span> than 450,000\nactual flight miles on United Airlines (equivalent to 84 transpacific\nflights) over the last 25 years, so I've got somewhat of a sweet<\/span> spot for\nthem in my heart, and am probably more willing than the average person to let things slide.<\/p>\n\n But doing it — canceling my flight for their business convenience\n— the second time yesterday was enough for me to contact them to at\nleast ask whether they'd consider some kind of class or luggage upgrade as\na token<\/span> gesture.<\/p>\n\n Just contacting them to even try to talk about this was daunting. They\noffer no customer-service phone numbers on their site, so you must go\nthrough a web<\/span> form.<\/p>\n\n Okay, so I filled in all the details, wrote my\nmax-2000-character description, and submitted it, only to be met with the\nerror: “<\/span>Your email address does not match. Please reenter<\/i>”<\/span>. Uh,\ndoesn't match what?<\/i>. Perhaps they used to have the kind of thing\nwhere you have to enter your email twice, but currently there's only one\nplace to enter it (and anyway, I'm logged<\/span> in to my Mileage Plus account, so\nthey know my email).<\/p>\n\n A search on the web showed others with the same frustration.<\/p>\n\n So I left a note on their Facebook page reporting the problem, and asked\nfor a phone<\/span> number I could<\/span> use. They actually responded with it (877-624-2660) pretty quickly,\nbut by that time I'd tracked down the number via calling their Mileage Plus office.<\/p>\n\n So, I called United Airlines Customer Service and talked to Rose. Rose\nconducted her job professionally, which means to say that she firmly (but\npolitely) told me that all these problems were weather related and that I\nhad<\/span> no claim. She kept referring<\/span> to the weather department as “<\/span>a very<\/span>\nspecial department”<\/span>, as if it were some kind of magical place where we\ncan't begin to understand what it does, but its decisions are the holy\ngrail of truth never to be questioned even in the back of our minds.<\/p>\n\n “<\/span>But Rose, they canceled the flight four days in advance (and conveniently\nthen used the plane to service Chicago and its much worse weather instead of Cleveland). Are you suggesting<\/span>\nthat they somehow knew the weather in Cleveland four days hence?<\/i>”<\/span>, I asked.<\/span><\/p>\n\n “<\/span>Yes, of course, it's a very<\/span> special department, and they take safety very seriously. We take safety<\/span> very seriously at United.<\/i>”<\/span>, she replied.<\/p>\n\n (Imagine, if you can, all this said in the same quick no-nonsense voice\nand cadence of Bernadette on Big Bang Theory<\/i>, and you'll have a\ncomplete<\/span> picture of my experience.)<\/p>\n\n I don't like to be a complainer, but I got<\/span> the short end of business\ndecisions made by United for their own convenience, twice, so I thought<\/span> a\ngesture<\/span> of an upgrade or an extra bag or something wasn't too much to ask\nfor, but Rose, always polite but always firmly rooted in “<\/span>it's a very<\/span>\nspecial department”<\/span>, waved the word “<\/span>weather”<\/span> as a get<\/span>-out-of-jail-free\ncard.<\/p>\n\n I asked how yesterday's flight from Akron to Chicago could possibly be\ncanceled for “<\/span>weather Anyway, to make a long story just a bit<\/span> less\nlong, I eventually<\/span> got bumped to Caroline, Caroline said that she'd report the web-site problem and that I should<\/span>\ntry it again later, but I didn't<\/span> hold much hope that it would be fixed nor\nthat even if it were that it would make any difference, considering the\n“<\/span>weather”<\/span> designation on my cancellations. But I did<\/span> check the web site\nlater and it was fixed, so I did<\/span> submit my note. Not holding<\/span> my breath,\nthough.<\/p>\n\n So in summary, I just screwed myself out of a\ncouple<\/span> of hours of my life, and into enhanced frustration and\nexasperation with an airline that I've used for 25 years.