[Anonymous]

[Monica11]

I booked tickets from San Diego to Hawaii well in advance of the trip. After check in both ways, I was treated like a standby. I had to wait until close to everyone else had boarded the flight before I was allowed to board. When I enquired about this, I was told that this is the United Policy, in that they overbook the flights.

On the way back from Hawaii, my hotel, the Ritz Carlton checked that there were seats available much earlier in the day. I travelled to the airport and had the misfortune to be attended to by one of the most unhelpful airline personnel that I have ever met. She refused to check me into the earlier flights to either San Francisco or Los Angeles. She also refused to help me by calling a manager. She even laughed at me with another customer who was just behind me. In the end I had to wait until 9 pm although I had arrived in plenty of time to catch either flight at 12-ish pm or 1-pm. When I returned and tried to contact the airline to lodge the complaint, they were unavailable. This was an awful end to an otherwise great vacation, all because I made the mistake of travelling with United Airlines. While United airlines continues to hire rude personnel it is no wonder that it is bankrupt. Buyer beware. I still intend to lodge a complaint against the person who checked me in, would be interested in hearing from anyone who has contacts there at senior levels.

When airlines continue to

[StephenLondon]

With the ability to check-in online well before your flight, I don’t quite understand why you were held back once you had “checked in” – seats can be pre-assigned online when you book, and you can check-in well in advance thus ensuring you a seat. If you failed to choose any of these well publicised options and wait for airport check-in, you do run the risk of being denied boarding.
As for your return journey, just because seats are available does not mean that you will have one when you turn up 10 hours early for your flight. You may have been on a ticket that was non-changeable, or you refused to pay more for higher-fare class seats on the earlier flights. As such, you had to travel on the flight you were booked on. Wailing against an airline for sticking to the rules in these circumstances seems petty to me. That said, at no time should an airline employee be rude or unhelpful. Luckily, with my many UA flights, I’ve found staff everywhere to be more than pleasant and helpful.

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