United Airlines Rip-Off, Oversold all Flights 7 Hours Wait at LAX Very Bad Service Elk Grove Village Illinois

I arrived at LAX shortly before 1:00PM for my 2:00PM flight to San Francisco, and after waiting in line at curbside, I was informed by the skycap that the deadline for checking in luggage passed while I was waiting in line.

I went in to try to check in at the desk, but I was forced to go "Standby" on the next flight at 3:00PM. Little did I know that I would be a prisoner in the Twilight Zone for the next 7 -Yes! Seven- Hours shuffling between Gates only to be told repeatedly that due to the flights being oversold, I would have to wait for the next flight.

I had plenty of company. Apparently I was still Number 60 on the waiting list at 8:00PM (even though I had come in before 1:00PM) and United was unable to let more than 2 people go standby on any of the subsequent 6 flights and none on most.I counted about 20 people in the group going from Gate to Gate trying to get on. Mind you , this was not a Holiday weekend, just an ordinary Sunday.

Finally, at 8:00PM, I stood in line at the customer service (There's an oxymoron if I ever heard one) and along with another passenger, demanded that my ticket be "pushed" to another Airline (Frontier in my case)

I had to go to another Terminal, fly on Frontier Airlines (who apparently do not oversell their flights as much as United does) because United employees kept telling me the chances of me geting on a United SF flight that night were slim to none. I live 70 Miles away from SFO, so I did not get home until 1:30AM, and had to go to work early the next morning.

I would not have gotten home that night had I not demanded to be sent on Frontier. No United employee even suggested it despite my repeated pleas for help getting home. And to add insult to injury, when I arrived in SFO, my luggage was still in LAX, the United Luggage desk in SFO made me put in a lost luggage claim with Frontier (rather than delivering it themselves) and as a result I did not get my luggage back until late the next day. I had refrigerated medicine in one of the boxes, and I do not know if they were subjected to overheating.

I can understand having to go on standby because of some 45-minute rule, but having to be held prisoner for seven hours is inhumane. All I got from any United employee was indifference thinly disguised as so-called "caring"
And when I repeatedly tried to call with a complaint, it was impossible to get any representative outside India.

I don't know if any of your readers have ever had the pleasure of getting anything resolved with an Indian CS rep (of any company). It is next to impossible to get anything resolved: they will NOT forward you to a supervisor until you practically badger them into it, and even when they do, the Supervisor is merely a slightly more polished version of the person you just spoke to. No authority to satisfy you whatsoever. All you ever get are useless apologies and meaningless platitudes.

When I got an Email reply from one of their CS Reps, he offered me a $100.00 certificate with restrictions. I replied that it was a slap in the face and that I will be posting a detailed version of my ordeal on this and other similar websites, hoping to encourage others with similar experiences to speak out and maybe get satisfaction.

The fact remains that United aggressively oversells their flights in pursuit of the almighty Dollar. They could care less about the welfare of their customers -or should I say victims- and that they have lives and jobs they need to get to.

Robert
Sonoma County, California
U.S.A.