[garyburl]

My family and I had made our reservations for our roundtrip flight from Seattle to Palm Springs in March of 2012. From that time until we actually left on Dec. 26th, United cancelled and reassigned our flight 6 different times. That was the first sign that flying United was a bad choice, but we had already paid for our tickets and hoped for the best.

On 12/26/12, our family of 5 (incl. a 2 1/2 year old and 2 other young kids) were left stranded in San Francisco after we missed our connecting flight to Palm Springs due to a mechanical problem with United's first flight from Seattle. The UAL customer service rep in Seattle had advised us to board the late flight anyway because our connecting flight was also late, and that there was a backup flight available to get us to PS even if we missed our flight. Unfortunately, when we arrived in SF, we found out that the connecting flight to PS had already left (it wasn't as late as the UAL rep said it would be) and the backup flight was already full and had no room for our family. UAL customer service in SF told us there weren't another 5 seats available in the foreseeable future on any of their flights to P.S. and that we were best off renting a car and driving the distance. The customer service supervisor in SF told us that, because of their inability to get us to PS and the predicament we were in, we would be refunded for the entire Seattle to Palm Springs leg of our trip. I watched as he typed comments into the UAL database before leaving. Now United is denying our claim for this (they said there was no evidence of the supervisor's comments in their database and I should've gotten his comments in writing) and they're only giving us a refund for the SF to PS portion of our trip. I have since filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau and the USDOT.

I should also mention that we also had a problem on one of our UAL return flights home. On January 4th, they had our 5 seats spread out all over the plane (and our 2 1/2 year old had been assigned to a seat apart from her parents in an emergency aisle, which is forbidden by airline regulations). Fortunately, United was able to reassign our seats at the last minute at the boarding gate so our youngest child could sit with one of her parents, but this was only after I had already wasted many frustrating hours on the phone with UAL's customer service dept. the night before trying to get the seats reassigned. Additionally, many of the reps we spoke with had very heavy foreign accents that made communication quite difficult.

So if you're traveling with young kids on a United flight, be forewarned that they can strand you in an airport without any provision for getting you to your destination within a reasonable timeframe. IMHO, they don't have enough backup aircraft available to handle problems like this when malfunctions happen, and if happened to us, it can happen to you. They can also renege on their promises about the size of refunds, so be sure to get any refund claims made by their staff in writing.

As compensation, UAL sent us five $150 ticket vouchers for future travel, but after our horrible experience, I told them I didn't want to risk having our family stranded again, so we won't be using them or ever flying their airline again.