United Airlines Customer "we don't care" Department Houston Texas

Here's the condensed version:

August 4: four of my children and myself arrive at the Pasco, WA airport to board a flight to Brazil. We will be living here for three years. We had problems with our confirmation number from the very beginning. We eventually (after a whole hour at the check in counter) got through security and to the gate. The gate agent says "Oh good. We knew you were coming." Then only 2 of the 5 boarding passes would scan. Elderick, the gate agent, calls for help from the ticket counter 4 times. No one comes. Then a groundscrew member comes in the door to see what the hold up is. She calls for help. No one comes or even responds. Elderick eventually tells us that there is nothing he can do and the flight has to leave. So, they close the door and the flight takes off without us. Seven of our extra large suitcases made it on the flight and all the way to Brasilia without us.

Our tickets were originally purchased on Expedia.com so we immediately contacted them. We were continually told that United Airlines entered us in the system as "no shows" which therefore cancelled the last two legs of our itinerary. All United had to do was change the erronously entered status and we would be able to rebook our flights without any problems. They would not. On Friday, August 5 Expedia told us that if we did not request a refund then, we would get nothing back. So, we got a partial refund of our tickets and had to purchase new ones.

We had to wait four days for our luggage to get back from Brasilia because they would not hold it until we got there a week later.

We had to pay over $3000 more to purchase new tickets, stay in a hotel, purchase clothes & necessities for 4 days without luggage, food, gas, etc.

United Airlines continues to deny responsibility and consideres the case closed. All correspondence can be found on our blog at www.childfamilyinkennewick.blo gspot.com and the whole incident has been documented on the United facebook page from the beginning facebook.com/United/post...73860095147035

We were at the airport in plenty of time. We checked in and got boarding passes. Our luggage made it on the flight. We got to the gate, where the agent was waiting to board us. And then we were denied boarding with no explanation. Is there another avenue to take to seek reimbursement?

Thank you,