Mental note: Never fly United ever, ever again. Please cancel my United frequent flyer membership and flush all my miles down the proverbial toilet on one of your crappy planes.
We all know how bad off the airline industry is. They are limping along, or at best, trying to ‘reinvent’ themselves in to some kind of relevancy while slowly stripping us of benefits and things that were once standard wherever you flew. Now you pay for your luggage, you only get a granola bar for your $1200 first class seat and even going to the bathroom can be met with hostility. Now Delta in-flight engineers claim it is a security risk for coach passengers to use the first class bathroom. When called on their completely false logic, they then went on to say that all first class passengers have been pre-screened and we know more about them given their proximity to the cabin. Wow, even that guy you just upgraded? Touché. Do you think I am stupid?
The worst though was my wife’s recent trip to London. She flew United for the domestic leg to Dulles where she then took Virgin Atlantic across the pond. Her flight from DAY to IDA was delayed due to bad weather for over an hour. However, she was able to make her connection at Dulles in time. When she got to London, was her luggage there? Nope. With no helpful information coming from either carrier, she turned to me back in the States to try to help. I drove out to DAY and lo and behold what did I find at the United baggage office? Her luggage. Still_in_Dayton. Two days in London with no clothes or toiletries. Nice.
I went to the airport to pick her up a week later and guess what? You guessed it! They left her luggage behind at IAD *again.* She took it off of the Virgin Atlantic flight, brought it through customs and then re-checked it. On top of all of that , her flight to DAY was again, to no one’s surprise, delayed by two hours. So how does the baggage get left behind again?
My wife was understandably nuts at this point. Greeted by the United baggage rep with the same “we know nothing we will call you at some point when we find it” non-answer she was even more upset. At this point, the United rep responds “Ma’am, if you don’t calm down I am going to re-route your baggage to Beijing.” Nice. I finally resorted to working through the United 1-800 number for lost baggage and implored them to get it on the 10pm flight to DAY from IAD. That flight, was of course, delayed as well. To me, this means even more opportunity to get the baggage on there. Through the whole thing United wouldn't confirm anything. We can call in the morning and ask them to get it on the first flight. Why cant you call them *now* and ask them to get it on the 10pm flight? Our computers only send messages to each other every four hours. Wow. They certainly aren't spending money on computer upgrades.
I called back every hour through the night and was finally told the baggage ‘most likely’ was on the 10pm flight which was delayed to almost midnight. I picked up the baggage at the DAY airport at 1:50am.
“I hope your wife has calmed down by now” the agent from earlier told me. I am sure she has now that you didn’t route her baggage to Beijing.