[MQuinn]

My daughter purchased a round trip ticket from Vancouver, BC to Monterry California. She missed her connecting flight in San Fransico becuase she was in a book store and didn't notice the time. When she went to the counter she was told the next flight wasn't until late in the evining so she elected to take the bus instead. United then cancelled all of her remaining flights becuase in their words "she was a no show". WTF!! Now she is stranded in California becuase she hasn't enough cash to purchase a one way ticket home. Does anybody know who I can contact to initiate some sort of legal action against this company?

[Corbel]

i dont think there is anything you can do. your daughter missed her flight, her fault. if she missed her connecting flight because of the airline, then yes, they could have rebooked her or put her on stand by for a different flight. but that is not the case here. your daughter (the way it sounds) made the flight out, but didn't take the flight back (she missed it) therefore, she opted to take the bus, leaving united to cancell the ticket. she was a no show. i dont think there is anything you can do.

[PHXFlyer]

Unfortunately there's nothing you nor she can do. She was ticketed to fly from Vancouver, BC to Monterey, CA not San Francisco. Before she left the airport in San Francisco she should have discussed her plans with a United ticket agent. When you skip any portion of an itinerary, except the last of course, the remaining segments are canceled. It's part of the contract of carriage and by walking away in San Francisco that contract for this ticket was broken.

[MQuinn]

My daughter went to the counter and was informed that she just missed her flight to Monterry, that the next flight was full and the next flight wasn't until several hours later. They then directed her to the bus kiosk. No one informed her that she would forfeit her return ticket by not staying and flying to Monterry. This whole thing makes no sense. Why should one lose all their flights because they make a logical decision to save time? At the very least the company is responsible for not explaining the policy at the time they directed her to the bus kiosk.

[PHXFlyer]

Originally Posted by MQuinn

When she went to the counter she was told the next flight wasn't until late in the evining so she elected to take the bus instead.

First you said "elected" now you're saying "directed." Which are we to believe?

Where did she show up to check in for her return flight? Monterey or San Francisco? My advice would be take the bus back to SFO and try to locate the agent that "directed her to the bus kiosk" or speak to a supervisor there. The employees at Monterey probably work for United's regional carrier and have very little authority to reinstate a ticket.

[mars6423]

maybe the agent pointed to a bus kiosk to a hotel if your daughter asked about a confirmed ticket the next day or a hour tour bus or some other bus, but your daughter took the bus to the destination cancleing the reservation.

phxflyer is right, you changed from elected to directed, so from your first story i am lead to believe that your daughter chose to take the bus, and yeah it sucks that it cancles your reservation but its part of the "contract" if you want to see a ticket that way.

Since it was your daughters fault that she missed her connection by not keeping time in the bookstore than left, i suggest seeing where it is cheaper to get back home, as you will need to buy new ticket(s) since the airline cant babysit and make sure people dont miss their flight for controlable reasons such as leisurable activities.

[MQuinn]

It more than just sucks that her return ticket was cancelled. It may be part of the "contract" when you buy a ticket but it is extremely bad business practice to hide behind the fine print when passengers are not properly informed of their situation. Who are you guys anyway - wanna be airline executives or something?

[PHXFlyer]

Originally Posted by mars6423

Since it was your daughters fault that she missed her connection by not keeping time in the bookstore than left, i suggest seeing where it is cheaper to get back home, as you will need to buy new ticket(s) since the airline cant babysit and make sure people dont miss their flight for controlable reasons such as leisurable activities.

She may still be able to use the existing ticket by paying a change fee and possibly some additional fare. It will depend on the type of fare but if it's a deeply discounted round-trip fare they may charge you the difference up to a one-way walk-up which is probably pricey. In the end it may indeed be cheaper to check options departing other cities on another airline. Try Kayak.com. If you check the box that says

include nearby airports

it will search the whole Bay Area. I just did a search and there's a flight today on United from San Jose (SJC) for $189 USD and on Saturday US Airways has flights out of SFO, SJC and OAK for $173-$189 but she'll have to fly all the way to PHX to connect. Delta also has fares of $173-184 on Saturday.

[mars6423]

well i am a frequent flyer who mainly travels internationally, and no i am not trying to become an airline ceo exec or anythin like that

i would like to think that PHXflyer is with me by sayin we are lookin at what you could do, such as suggestions, and that we are lookin for ways to help you get your daughter back home

since PHXflyer and i both dont work for an airline we cant do anything about the situation and your tickets, but can look for cheap flights and pass the word onto you.

and my comment about the contract is that both sides have a responsibility to get the passanger from point A to point B and your daughter didnt follow that so that the airline did what their policy states, and you can find it on their website i believe, i have read things to do with my tickets whilst i was at the airport and somethings i find crazy but are only used in a tiny percent of the time.

[Corbel]

im getting the feeling that this could be one of those types..."the passenger wont take responsibility for their own actions". you have already changed your story. now what are we to believe. either or, your daughter missed the flight. your daughter is the one that broke the contract.

[PHXFlyer]

Originally Posted by Corbel

im getting the feeling that this could be one of those types..."the passenger wont take responsibility for their own actions". you have already changed your story. now what are we to believe. either or, your daughter missed the flight. your daughter is the one that broke the contract.

My "gut feeling" on this is that they weren't trying to "pull a fast one" on UA to deliberately circumvent the rules. It's just a case of an inexperienced traveler not knowing the consequences of skipping a ticketed segment. Of course my "gut feeling" has been possibly been wrong on a couple of occasions but if the airlines didn't enforce the rules consistently they would be making allowances left and right for those who were trying to "game the system." I think we gave them very constructive suggestions. If they choose to act on them or not is totally up to them at this point. Hopefully they'll post the outcome here.

[Silent Bob]

If the OP goes with what he states in his complaint, then there is no legal action as it's all in the fault of the daughter for not being aware of the time. She had the option for a later flight but chose to take a bus, again that was a choice she made and in the end lost her flight. You can try small claims action, but I am sure the agent must have documented what had happened which will show your daughter at fault.

funny thing is when I first started flying I made almost exact same mistake with the exact same airline, I was reading, not near my gate, realizing the time I made a mad dash for the flight but the doors were already closed. Luckily United was nice about it and just rebooked my flight the following day to chicago, which means for the first time I was stuck in Las Vegas (which I didn't really care because it was Vegas).

[PHXFlyer]

More from the OP: (Wonder why nothing more posted in this thread?)

Originally Posted by MQuinn

Jester - apparently this site is crock. We the general public make what are valid points about the way the airlines hide behind the fine print to strand people and instead of getting some support this website is teaming with airline sympathizers who relish in grinding your nose in the dirt further.

Sp, s/he didn't get the responses s/he wanted to here and now s/he's mad. Just like when the airline didn't tell him/her what s/he wanted to hear it's bad service and the airline was just out to rob him/her from the get go.

[oh my]

MQuinn, when passengers purchase a ticket on an airline, it's a contract from (in your daughter's case) Vancouver to Monterrey. San Francisco is a necessary point in the itinerary, but in no way has to do with the origin or destination of the ticket. When a passenger forgoes a leg of their journey, the rest of the itinerary is automatically cancelled, usually by a computer program that runs through all the no-show names on a flight. Here is the airline's logic in this situation (i'm making up prices just to get the point across, so please work with me):

You go to book airline tickets for your trip from Vancouver to Monterrey round-trip. These are the lowest fares you find:
Vancouver to Monterrey round-trip is $500 on your travel dates
Vancouver to Monterrey one-way is $650 on your departure date
Monterrey to Vancouver one-way is $700 on your return date
You're gonna book the round-trip, cause its way cheaper....$500 vs.$1350

Now, say, you really want to go from Vancouver to San Fran, meet some friends, roadtrip to Monterrey, then come back to Vancouver from Monterrey. You do some digging on the internet. This is what you find:
Vancouver to San Francisco one-way is $800 on your departure date
Monterrey to Vancouver one-way is $700 on your return date
BUT...
Vancouver to Monterrey round-trip is only $500, AND the connection happens to be in San Fran! Why not just buy the $500 round-trip, and just not fly the San Fran to Monterrey portion. It'd save you $1000 ($500 vs. $1500), right?

Wrong. The airlines know that things like this are done, and to prevent it, they cancel your itinerary when you don't show for the San Fran-Monterrey portion. They have a business to run, and are going to make sure that they are not taken advantage of. So, when you skip that one little flight, they cancel your itinerary. They want to be able to sell as many seats as they can, so they free up the space that you were taking and sell it to someone else. You can't use it after all, because the "low" fare of $500 that you and the airline agreed upom is no longer what you traveled. You really traveled the $800 trip from Vancouver to San Fran. And they certainly aren't going to keep your booked low fare, and price out what is left, which would be the $700 from above. Why would they do that when they think you were trying to pull one over on them (which you, kinda, were.)

So, that is the logic in canceling itineraries of people who don't travel a portion of their flight. I know that your daughter did not intentionally skip out on the San Fran to Monterrey flight (or roadtrip or anything like that), but cancelling the itinerary is something that is programmed to happen. If the agents knew her situation and still directed her to the bus as a means of transportation to Monterrey, then they probably should have mentioned it. If she just asked someone the best way to get to Monterrey, without explaining that she was in the middle of travel, then the agents don't know to advise her of the policy. Either way, it's unfortunate that the policy wasn't understood.

Side note:
The airlines have different prices for different city pairs. It may seem silly that a flight from Detroit to Indy might cost you $250, when a flight from Detroit to Los Angeles is only $200, right? Especially considering LA is so much farther than Indy from Detroit. BUT, the marketing people for the airlines have some crazy way to figure out what will (hopefully) make them money as opposed to lose money. I, unfortunately, have no idea how this works. I wish I did.

I know it is a long explanation, and kind of confusing, but I tried to explain it the best i could. It should be clear as mud, right? I know that it doesn't change what happened, but maybe understanding why it was done might make it a bit easier to deal with. I hope it helped.

[MQuinn]

The fact of the matter is this - and it is pretty simple - my daughter missed her flight becuase she snoozed - yes it was her fault. But she was a not a "no show". She got to the gate minutes after it closed. The next flight to Monterry was full and the next one after that was not until 10:30 PM a full seven hours later. The gate attendant told her where to go to get bus information and she found out she could get a bus leaving right away that would get her to Monterry in three hours. So she did what any right mined person would do and take the bus. At no time did the gate agent inform her that she would forfeit her return ticket by taking the bus. And of course like most of she was not aware of the fine print. I challenge any of you "experts" on thsi form to make a logical case why the airline does not have any responsiblity in cases like this.

[oh my]

um, she was a no show. 7 hours later or not, she's contracted to FLY. And she didn't. the fact that she missed the first flight because of something she failed to do, really has nothing to do with my argument. so she got sidetracked. I've done it myself, honestly. Not really a big deal. The airline was able to rebook her, and she chose alternate arrangements. that is where the no show comes into play. the airline expects her to fly. that was the agreement. i don't think she'd have taken the bus if she was stuck in detroit and missed her flight to monterrey, though. And she should have been told by the gate agent of the policy. You are correct in thinking that it was a failure of the gate agent's to not inform her, at least out of common courtesy. He or she, in my opinion, should have done so. Especially considering that i'm sure there are lots of people that do the exact same thing. The cities are relatively close, with bus service from the airport. It should be a mistake that a lot of people make. So the agents should almost expect passengers to think of that alternative. I'm not saying what she did wasn't logical. It was. Unfortunately, though, it was something that the airlines do not allow. My logical case why the airline is not responsible, though, is simply that they are not. Read or unread, the fine print was available and part of the agreement. The failure, weather she was aware of it at the time or not, is the passengers.

[Silent Bob]

It doesn't matter what the fine prints are, she's a no-show because she didn't show up for the flight she was supposed to take. Of course she was in the building, she was checked in, but when it was time to board she was not around, so the fault lies within the daughter. United offered her a chance to rebook, and by her own choice she took a bus. Now what happened within that conversation we will never know, this is all third party account. Maybe your daughter was too upset and didn't think about the flight, heard the words bus and 3 hours and took that option. Maybe she was so ticked off at being left behind that the end results was the United agent telling her how to get out sooner rather than wait 7 hours. Simply put we're going by your words of your daughters who's already upset over the fact that all this is happening to her, maybe there's some embelishment? possibly? Does it change the fact that had she been more aware, none of this would have happened? No.

Basically the airlines have no responsibility in this case because your daughter dropped the ball, end of story.

[rudybjr]

The reason the ticket gets cancelled is because the airline sees it as someone who didn't get to their destination will not be using the return portion. Unless you let them know not to cancel the return, it will be automatically cancelled by the reservation system. This was all your daughter's fault not the airline.

Don't take it out on the people commenting on the situation, it is clearly your daughter's fault. Next time tell her to read the contract of carriage before she takes a course of action.

[PHXFlyer]

I find it interesting how the story keeps changing every time.

Originally Posted by MQuinn

My daughter purchased a round trip ticket from Vancouver, BC to Monterry California. She missed her connecting flight in San Fransico becuase she was in a book store and didn't notice the time. When she went to the counter she was told the next flight wasn't until late in the evining so she elected to take the bus instead. United then cancelled all of her remaining flights becuase in their words "she was a no show". WTF!! Now she is stranded in California becuase she hasn't enough cash to purchase a one way ticket home. Does anybody know who I can contact to initiate some sort of legal action against this company?

Originally Posted by MQuinn

My daughter went to the counter and was informed that she just missed her flight to Monterry, that the next flight was full and the next flight wasn't until several hours later. They then directed her to the bus kiosk. No one informed her that she would forfeit her return ticket by not staying and flying to Monterry. This whole thing makes no sense. Why should one lose all their flights because they make a logical decision to save time? At the very least the company is responsible for not explaining the policy at the time they directed her to the bus kiosk.

Originally Posted by MQuinn

The fact of the matter is this - and it is pretty simple - my daughter missed her flight becuase she snoozed - yes it was her fault. But she was a not a "no show". She got to the gate minutes after it closed. The next flight to Monterry was full and the next one after that was not until 10:30 PM a full seven hours later. The gate attendant told her where to go to get bus information and she found out she could get a bus leaving right away that would get her to Monterry in three hours. So she did what any right mined person would do and take the bus. At no time did the gate agent inform her that she would forfeit her return ticket by taking the bus. And of course like most of she was not aware of the fine print. I challenge any of you "experts" on thsi form to make a logical case why the airline does not have any responsiblity in cases like this.

First the idea to take the bus was hers. Then she wants us to believe she was practically escorted to the bus by a United employee. In the first account she was "in a book store" but now the story is she was sleeping in the airport and missed the flight. Are these lies your own embellishments or did your daughter tell you different stories each time? In either case your credibility is in serious question.

Also, you never answered my question. When she checked-in to fly back to Vancouver was she in Monterey or San Francisco. Before you were given benefit of the doubt but now I'm thinking her intended destination was San Francisco all along but the fare to Monterey was cheaper. If that's the case then she was "gaming the system" and got what she deserved!