[D abercrombie]

Our 6AM United flight (booked by Air Canada) from Austin to Chicago was delayed by 45 minutes but we were informed by the flight crew that they should hold our connecting flight (to Edmonton) for us in Chicago since we would arrive before the flight was scheduled to depart. We arrived in Chicago before our next flight was scheduled to depart but were told the flight had already left the gate and that they would not have allowed us on the flight anyways since the flight was overweight and overbooked. This is called BUMPING INVOLUNTARILY!!! We then had to wait in airports for 12 hours with 3 children to get alternate flights to Edmonton. We saw other flights wait for individuals on connecting flights so the issue was not that the flight could not have waited a couple of minutes for us. We were forced to take 2 additional connecting flights to get back to Edmonton. The flight we eventually took back into Canada was also overweight and as a result delayed while they implored 9 people to voluntarily be bumped. The individuals that were voluntarily bumped were given 300$$ vouchers, hotel accommodations and meals. While I was not given anything for being involuntarily bumped that resulted in us arriving home at 2:30AM in the morning instead of 12:00PM in the afternoon. Not only that our party was split up so that we did not fly together and our luggage did not arrive. We requested compensation similar to those who were voluntarily bumped but were offered virtually nothing. Not even an apology. United denied that the flight we missed left without us because they needed individuals to be bumped from the flight because they were overweight. This is in direct contradiction to what were told at the gate. We contacted Air Canada customer relations but were told similar stories to others who have posted threads. Is there somewhere else in Air Canada we can send our complaint to? Customer relations is really not helpful and clearly sends everyone a similar canned response.