[melissamyers]

Months ago, I purchased two tickets on United.com from San Francisco to Panama City with the understanding that the return flight was direct from Panama City to San Francisco airport. See information below:

Sun, 05AUG12 UA1033 Q PANAMA CITY, PANAMA
(PTY) 1:46 PM SAN FRANCISCO, CA (SFO) 8:49 PM

I chose to book this flight, and pay extra, specifically because it was published as a direct flight.

On August 4, 2012, I received a notification that I had checked into my flight. I had not. When I called United Customer Service, concerned that my email had been hacked, they told me I had been auto checked in and that my flight had been canceled. I was now booked on a flight with a 30 minute layover. The rep. admitted that I would never make this connection in time. Upon further discussion, I was also told that a direct flight from Panama City to San Francisco never existed in the first place, and that I should have known this when I booked it. Silly me for trusting United's published fare!

After several additional phone calls, I was finally re-booked on a later flight through Houston (not the non-stop I had paid for.)

United needs to stop publishing the Panama City to San Francisco flight as round trip, and include truthful details on their website in regard to the legs and stopovers. And quit it with the auto-check in! It's almost as if United wanted people to overlook this re-booking...perhaps because the later flight was oversold. Tricky and sneaky business.

In the future, I certainly won't be booking tickets on United Airlines when I have the option of countless international airlines who are honest and straight-forward with their fares, flight routes, and cancelations. What an unethical business practice all around.

Melissa Myers