Date of Travel: Feb 2007 Flying from: Chicago O'Hare International Airport Flying to: Las Vegas McCarran International Airport Class: Economy Recommended: No Submitted By: Lisa Harris Comments: I travelled with ‘TED' by United from Chicago (ORD) to Las Vegas on 19th Feb 2007. After a transatlantic flight with bmi, which was excellent, I checked in 6 hours early, ensuring with the ground-staff this would be ok. Upon landing, my friend and I found our baggage had not arrived on our flight, there was a ‘secure' baggage area next to the conveyor belt, and luckily my friend's bag was in there. The man supervising the baggage area asked for no identification or baggage tags when she collected her luggage from him, not secure at all considering the baggage collection point at Vegas airport is open to anybody, not just travellers.
I was then informed my baggage had been put on an earlier flight and had landed in Vegas at 6:42pm (I didn't take-off from Chicago until 9:30pm!). There were no security measures to ensure my bag was taken off the conveyor belt, or put in a holding area, and this is where the bag went missing. United have assumed it was stolen.
I was then told to print off a baggage claim form and send it back to Chicago where it would take 6 weeks to complete. I was given no emergency toiletries or cash - was simply told, very rudely I should be carrying a credit card!
The next day I rang the baggage claim number provided by U.A – a foreign call centre! They struggled to understand what I was saying, or even what my problem was. They informed me my bag had been miraculously found and was waiting at Vegas airport to be couriered to my hotel. I was so desperate for clean clothes I offered to collect the bag myself…I arrived at the airport only to be told my bag had in fact not been found!
The next person I spoke to at the call centre said she would send me an emergency cheque for $100 to buy essentials while I was on holiday. After 3 days it still hadn't arrived, so I rang back, where I was informed it would take 2 weeks to be sent out – hardly an emergency response!
I am still waiting for my claim to arrive, I rang today (a month later) to see the progress of my claim, but ended up hanging up when the lady at the end of the phone informed me she had never heard of the letter ‘R' in the alphabet, and was unable to type in my name…”HARRIS”…hardly a difficult name to spell!
Not a good service from U.A. Apart from my baggage, my flight was delayed, the planes were shoddy and very dirty – not impressed at all. I would never again fly with United Airlines.
Date of Travel: May 2006 Flying from: Dallas Fort Worth Airport Flying to: Honolulu Airport Class: Economy Recommended: No Submitted By: Not Specified Comments: The aircraft broke down going and returning, we ended up on American Airlines, all of United personnel were rude and not to helpful, like they were giving you a free ride.
Date of Travel: Apr 2006 Flying from: Chicago O'Hare International Airport Flying to: Los Angeles International Airport Class: Economy Recommended: No Submitted By: Anon Comments: Have only used this airline as part of a package and will never use again. Used for our honeymoon and the flight over to the us was fine (another airline). We were late getting into the airport and the organisation on how to get the connecting flight was crap. We eventually found which desk we were to inform that we had arrived and told to wait as the next flight to la and others after would be like a lottery as to weather we would get on. After 6 hours waiting in the same room we boarded. Plane was dirty, old and the staff just pig ignorant. We arrived in la in the middle of the night with no bags to put the icing on the cake.
Stay clear, you have been warned!!
Date of Travel: Apr 2006 Flying from: Chicago O'Hare International Airport Flying to: Los Angeles International Airport Class: Economy Recommended: No Submitted By: Anon Comments: Have only used this airline as part of a package and will never use again. Used for our honeymoon and the flight over to the us was fine (another airline). We were late getting into the airport and the organisation on how to get the connecting flight was crap. We eventually found which desk we were to inform that we had arrived and told to wait as the next flight to la and others after would be like a lottery as to weather we would get on. After 6 hours waiting in the same room we boarded. Plane was dirty, old and the staff just pig ignorant. We arrived in la in the middle of the night with no bags to put the icing on the cake.
Stay clear, you have been warned!!
Date of Travel: Jan 2006 Flying from: Chicago O'Hare International Airport Flying to: Seattle Tacoma International Airport Class: Business Recommended: No Submitted By: Brian Hawe Comments: We traveled from Chicago to Seattle after arriving in ORD from a bmi flight which was late in.
Having been told by the bmi crew that United would have rebooked our onward connections we went to the UA transfer desk only to be shouted at by UA staff and told to go to the SAS desk as it was a bmi problem.(SAS handle bmi).
It took an hour to work to the front of the line to get our new boarding cards, mainly because of arrogant US citizens insisting on food vouchers because they had an enforced 2 or 3 hour wait for their new connection - all we and fellow Brits wanted was a flight!!
We then had to trail back to the UA transfer desk to check in for our new flight, and another shouting match to check we really had boarding passes. It appeared to be a regular occurrence for the bmi flight to be late and the UA staff had clearly got to the end of their collective tether sorting out the problems - but that wasn't our fault.
The UA flights we eventually traveled to and from Seattle on were on time, but the service was nothing special and the aircraft cramped and old.