Never Ever Fly United
Remember the thing with the United baggage fees? Well, we get an email of our itinerary that states what the baggage fees will be:
Pretty clear right? Then they charged us $50 for checking bags at one airport and $56 on the way back. At the time, I figured this was less than ideal, because they had my money then and getting it back is always harder than not giving it up in the first place. Turns out, I wish I'd stood my ground. I contacted them right after getting back. After 2 weeks, I hadn't heard back, so I contacted them again, including a copy of the first message. After another week, I called my credit card company to file a dispute. They said they were not allowed to dispute charges from airlines. Hunh? Well, basically, they've got a deal with the airlines to not fight their charges. So though United is behaving more like a shifty, foreign web seller, I have no recourse. This week I thought, heck, I'll give them a call to see if I can get anywhere. There's no phone number. There's no one to call. Just fill out this web form that goes to... nowhere.
I'm pretty certain that I'll never get a response from them. If I do, I'm certain it will be, "Sorry, no refunds." Fraud? Yeah. You bait and switch the consumer and have carte blanche to do it. Neat trick United. I'll never buy a ticket from you again, and the only thing I get to be especially careful about is all the flights that are officially on another carrier, but which are "operated by United."
Pretty clear right? Then they charged us $50 for checking bags at one airport and $56 on the way back. At the time, I figured this was less than ideal, because they had my money then and getting it back is always harder than not giving it up in the first place. Turns out, I wish I'd stood my ground. I contacted them right after getting back. After 2 weeks, I hadn't heard back, so I contacted them again, including a copy of the first message. After another week, I called my credit card company to file a dispute. They said they were not allowed to dispute charges from airlines. Hunh? Well, basically, they've got a deal with the airlines to not fight their charges. So though United is behaving more like a shifty, foreign web seller, I have no recourse. This week I thought, heck, I'll give them a call to see if I can get anywhere. There's no phone number. There's no one to call. Just fill out this web form that goes to... nowhere.
I'm pretty certain that I'll never get a response from them. If I do, I'm certain it will be, "Sorry, no refunds." Fraud? Yeah. You bait and switch the consumer and have carte blanche to do it. Neat trick United. I'll never buy a ticket from you again, and the only thing I get to be especially careful about is all the flights that are officially on another carrier, but which are "operated by United."
3 Comments:
We too have to be careful about the ones that you book and they put you on United. We don't fly those either. Recently Jeremy's parents booked us on a flight through them and I was pissed. I will not give them out business, hearing your troubles with them solidifies my decision.
By
Laurie, at 11:13 AM
Try Elliot.org with tips for an executive email address... he might also help you mediate this dispute since you have decent evidence.
By
John Frost, at 6:32 PM
I would also contact California Consumer Affairs. This is a pretty clear case of bait-and-switch, as you said, and the collusion with credit card companies is fairly sinister. Lots of room to make a big stink out of this and they'll want to avoid that.
By
Justin McCoy, at 3:20 PM
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