United Airlines

✅ Trip Verified | Here is my email to United’s poor customer service after a recent and unfair overbooking matter that led them to involuntary downgrade me from first class and not compensate me for my inconvenience as they promised. In fact the customer care lady seemed pretty rude and determined not to give me an answer as to why they overbooked my seat even though I never bought insurance so there was not chance for me to cancel: Dear X, My experience talking to you today has unfortunately left me with a very poor impression of the customer care team at United Airlines. First and most importantly, you failed to answer why my ticket, that I rightfully bought and reserved, with no insurance (so there was no chance of canceling on my end), was involuntary downgraded. Clearly United failed to provide a reasonable answer and this leads me to think it is a clear consumer/passenger abuse, JUST because the airlines can do so, given their small yet powerful concentration of market power. It was clearly incentivized due to making that extra margin from my seat having been sold to someone willing to pay more. What will remain with me is your reply to saying “we cannot answer you as to why we overbooked”. Policies as they are remain because of the failure of the DOJ to look into these matters as abuses. While I was forced to accept the unfair refund amount today, I will make sure that if there are class actions and lawsuits arising in the near future with matters relevant to refunds related to overbooking at United, I will be the first to join. Needless to say I will work on investigating this matter moving forward.

Not Verified | United delayed us for nearly 9 hours on a one-hour flight due to a technical issue they had on their plane. Most of the hours were spent inside the plane, which is annoying for a 6’2” guy and is more than annoying during a pandemic. I reached out to United customer support and for the nearly nine hours of delay, they gave me thirty five dollars worth of miles. That means United values my time, lack of comfort, and lack of safety at roughly four dollars worth of miles per hour. Wow!

Not Verified | I was extremely sick with Covid and had to cancel my trip. The amount of my credit was more than the cost of one flight, but they wouldn’t let me use it. I wanted the remainder to go towards my flight home but I couldn’t. They’re basically robbing people. They told me a supervisor would call me within 72 hours and it’s been way longer and still no phone call. I contacted them again through their “virtual chat” and they said they’d have a supervisor call me in 72 hours. No. I’m not sitting around for another two days waiting for someone to possibly call me. They make it so impossible to talk to an actual human being! They’re awful. I don’t know how they’re even still in business!

Not Verified | Let’s just start off with how they cancelled our flight. “Due to lack of command”. We had connecting flights and they still made us get our luggage and check them in once again. After going through all that come to find out our flight home is cancelled. And we had no clue or no updates sent to us. So we had to spend the night in Chicago. They showed no empathy at all and were careless and disrespectful about our concerns. The next morning we get there to catch our flight and they claim we have too many carry on bags mind you this was not an issue for our other flight. We spoke with an agent who was extremely rude and she claimed she would call the supervisor. After wasting our time and holding us up she comes back repeating herself and explaining how the supervisor can not come speak with us. A supervisor who shows no effort to speak with customers what kind of service are we paying for people? This agent was extremely rude shouting at us and continuously walking away as we were speaking. I would not recommend this airline to anyone and I personally will never contribute any of my money to their stupid airline.

Not Verified | This review is for an upcoming trip that was booked and had to be cancelled. This trip was to include my senior aged mother and toddler child and was to visit an immediate family member who has failing health. It was determined due to COVID that it was safer for them to stay home. I attempted to get a refund for the tickets from United Airlines but they seem to be so hard up they refused, despite my explanation of concerns. It would also be nice to have the cash back in my pocket during these troubled times. Thanks United. Still as horrible as you’ve always been. Maybe if I had said the word funeral you would’ve grown a temporary heart.

✅ Trip Verified | Absolutely the worst airline I've ever flown with. Horrible customer service. I called 48 hours ahead to put my service dog on my flight and got there to the airport and it wasn't on. Service dog is a medical assist and ended up not being able to catch my flight. Absolutely rude customer service.

✅ Trip Verified | I flew from Canada to Australia via Chicago and LA. Our checked luggage made the very tight connection at ORD which was impressive. The LAX-SYD leg of the trip was outstanding and United deserve credit for continuing to run this journey despite only being allowed very limited passengers. Staff were attentive, our last-minute dietary requests were able to be accommodated, we were bumped up to Economy Plus, the flight was on time, and we were kept informed about Australian entry requirements for Covid. Overall it was an amazing experience, one of the best international flights I’ve been on. It obviously helps to only have 30 passengers on a whole Boeing Dreamliner, but even above that everything went smoothly and the customer service was great. For Australians trying to get home from North America during the Covid pandemic this is a great option and I’m grateful they are still running.

✅ Trip Verified | Worst flight ever. To start, I had to check my carry on bag, while others were allowed to keep theirs. This started the trip off poorly. But nothing huge. Then the take off got delayed 45 minutes because apparently getting baggage to the proper place on time isn't possible for these guys. Just to clarify, that's 45 minutes late to take off for what was supposed to be an hour long Flight to Greensboro. A one hour flight. A one hour flight. Yes, I'm intentionally referencing Gilligan's Island, because that's the level of competence I have seen from United. None. Then after leaving almost later than the arrival time, we circle Greensboro for 30 minutes before going to Charlotte, because of some fog. But the staff refused to tell us much of anything until we were basically landing in Charlotte. Had I realized United's pilots cannot navigate fog (which is low lying clouds) I never would have agreed to fly with them. Much less paying to do so. So now, because of the incompetence of their staff, my terminally ill father (the reason for my trip) has to pick me up in Charlotte.

✅ Trip Verified | I recently contracted COVID-19 and now need to change my flight scheduled on 01/1 to San Jose, Costa Rica. Other than waiving change fees, United has not provided any support so I can change my flight without paying more than +$80 in the price difference. The worst part is that they've waived this in the past and now that I literally cannot fly because of a medical emergency they cannot make do this for whatever reason. I was on the phone for over 1hr and 30 minutes and neither the agent nor supervisor was able to give me an option so I don't have to pay such a hefty amount. Terrible customer service and consideration to those that have been infected.

✅ Trip Verified | I'm a frequent business and pleasure flyer and flying United was the worst air travel experience I ever had. I bought a business-class flat bed ticket on United 363 from Newark to Honolulu leaving on 12/17/2020 at 9:50am. I required a business class level of service due to my injured spine with multiple herniated discs. Due to the snowstorm on the night of 12/16-12/17, I had difficulty finding a taxi and getting to the airport, and I arrived at the airport 50 minutes prior to my 9:40am departure. I had already checked in to my flight online and just needed to drop off 1 bag, which is technically still within United's 45-minute window submitting luggage for domestic flights. However, when I inquired about business class service, United personnel had no idea where to direct me. At first they sent me from the 2nd to the 3rd level of Newark Terminal C, however the United personnel there claimed they don't service Hawaii and sent me back down to Level 2, which was all Economy and big lines. I tried approaching multiple United personnel and all of them refused to help me and directed me towards Economy lines. Soon, they claimed I was too late for my flight - but I wouldn't be late if they did their job from the beginning and assisted me with priority service! At this point I was sent to wait in a massive line for customer assistance (again, no business class service to be found). I would have missed every other UA flight waiting in that line, but I also called United customer service by phone, where United phone agent (the only helpful agent in this entire experience) helped me rebook for a flight that departed one hour later, at 10:50am with a connection in SFO. However, I was made to pay a $539 flight upgrade fee that was sold to me as an "upgrade" from business to 1st class, which in reality turned out to be exactly the opposite, a downgrade: an old upright seat with minimal recline that is vastly inferior to my previously booked flat bed business seat, and much worse for my back. I found this deeply unfair. Even after rebooking, checking in to my new First Class flight was again a nightmare and I almost missed it, too, with no one willing to assist me even as I followed the phone agent's advice and told United personnel that I was flying 1st class. Probably 5 or 6 employees shooed me away and told me to get into a line for Economy electronic kiosks (half of which weren't working) and a long Economy passenger line for bag drop-off. The computer kiosk (when I finally got to it) again claimed I was too late to register baggage for my newly re-booked flight, but I miraculously found one competent UA agent who helped me overcome this. All in all, I had an absolute worst nightmare flying experience of my life. The physical pain in my back flared up from all of the dashing between floors, kiosks, and lines that I was made to endure with no one able or willing to help me. The service I received from United was absolutely abominable and especially so for business/1st class, and frankly it was horrible for any human being in any class to be subjected to such humiliation, physical pain, and monetary deprivation (which was unreasonable because I was actually downgraded, not upgraded). Online complaint with UA resulted in a generic "you were late and we won't do anything" answer (arriving 50 minutes should have absolutely been accommodated for a business class traveler who already checked in). I will never fly United again.