a little story about united airlines

and i would strongly encourage ALL that fly to NOT use them
(via americablog)

Bad airline stories are nothing like this
By Gerry Braun
UNION-TRIBUNE
As I watch the Olympics this week, my thoughts keep turning to Anita Cabral of Spring Valley, though she is not an Olympian, or even an athlete.

Cabral is a disgusted former customer of United Airlines, the official airline of the Beijing Games. I think of her whenever I see that United commercial with the orchestra of animated sea creatures playing Gershwin's “Rhapsody in Blue.”.........

..........

Cabral had meticulously planned this vacation, built around a family reunion in Hawaii and a chance for her grown children to see their father, Cabral's ex, who was in a hospice dying of cancer.

Eight people were making the trip: Cabral, her husband, her brother, her son, her daughter and her daughter's husband and two children.

One year out, they wrote a five-figure check to reserve a five-bedroom, five-bathroom beach house. They bought their tickets from United six months early. They booked a jungle excursion, a luau, a trip in a glass-bottom boat.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime trip, and they had a big investment in it, emotionally and financially. They even had it insured.

And all that planning unraveled in just a few hours.

The day before they were to depart, Anita's daughter, Deanna Kawasaki, received an e-mail from United telling her she could check in her party online. But the site would not let her.

When she called United to see what the trouble was, she was told the flight had been canceled.

But that made no sense. Her stepfather had just confirmed his seat, using a different reservation number, so the flight obviously wasn't canceled.

United threw out another explanation – a computer “lost” their reservations. That made no sense, either. If her reservations weren't in the computer, why did she get an e-mail telling her to check in?...........