Mark Blevis

I’ve had an interesting run with United Airlines.  It continues to this day.

It began on October 9 with a series of mishaps I documented on my blog.  I submitted a claim to United on October 16.  After two months of calling their Customer Relations department on a weekly basis, during which I was shielded from their Claims Department, I finally received a call from Claims agreeing to pay CDN$675.03 in flights, hotels, baggage fees and meals, and US$48 in taxi fees.  They even offered me a $300 travel voucher.   That was December 14.  United has failed to deliver on their offer.  Each time I call, I’m told that they will look into the status and get back to me.  They never do.

For some reason, I decided to fly with United over the Christmas holidays (despite my recent experiences or perhaps because they had finally offered to reimburse me).  That turned out to be a different nightmare.  United misplaced our two suitcases for six days.  We had to shop several times to keep our family of four in fresh clothes, toiletries, shoes (we arrived in boots), swimsuits (it was a holiday after all), hats and mits (we could have replaced snow pants for a snowshoeing expedition, instead we canceled it), replace misplaced holiday gifts and even buy a new suitcase to carry everything home.  Despite how frugal we were, that total came to US$873.64.  I submitted a claim for that amount on January 5, 2009 and have heard nothing from United on it.

In all, United is in possession of US$921.63 and CDN$675.03 of my personal funds.  That doesn’t count the time I invest in the numerous phone calls to their customer relations department at a minumum of 20 minutes a piece.

I get the feeling that United is trying to wear me down from reclaiming my money and wonder how many other people are in a similar situation.