Late flight/Missed connection
 

My husband has been traveling this week for business. His flight from Charlotte to Denver was 90 minutes late leaving. They were told it was because the crew for that flight arrived late the night before and needed x amount of rest hours before flying again. So, the flight leaves late, which meant that my husband missed his connection in Denver. United put him on the standby list for 3 different flights, but never got him on any of them. They would not give him a hotel voucher until he had tried for all 3 flights, which of course meant hanging out at the airport for close to 10 hours.

So United put him on another standby list for today, late morning. They told him if he can't get on that flight, they have him confirmed on a flight later tonight around 9pm.

He was to be home at noon yesterday, but now he probably won't get home til close to midnight tonight.

Needless to say, he is irate.

We have dealt with minor inconveniences on various airlines, so never asked for any sort of compensation.

So our question is, what, if any, compensation is he entitled to or should he ask for?

There are some people who would demand at least their own plane as compensation lol.

My opinion, since I am aware that your husband had other commitments for this weekend and that the weather, mechanical probs, etc were not contributing factors to his being kept from getting home at a reasonable time/day, I think he is definitely entitled to compensation.
Customer Care is the area to go to/email/mail, when making your complaint.
(Not that man/woman standing at the desk in the airport)..Good luck, I sure hope he gets home tonight !

Ugh. Just talked to DH. The standby flight that was to leave a few minutes ago is delayed by 90 minutes. So he still doesn't know if he is on that.

In the meantime, apparently it was a fiasco with the hotel last night. There were apparently quite a few people on his first flight that missed connections, so quite a few were in the same boat as him. When they were finally given hotel vouchers for the Radisson, they were all calling the hotel asking how long til the shuttle van arrived. Everyone was told similar stories, of around 5 minutes. That group waited for an hour and 10 minutes for the van to arrive, and when it got there there were not enough seats for everyone, and apparently the driver was quite rude. So my DH called another hotel (I think he said Holiday Inn Express), got a room (paid for himself), and so gave up his seat for the Radisson and took the shuttle for the other hotel.

So the saga continues. I told him I would make sure I had a cold beer for him whenever he finally makes it home, lol! I think he will be spending all day tomorrow writing letters. Good thing he has his laptop with him as he is documenting all of this right now.

Par for the course...he did not get on that standby flight. He is standby on yet another flight for later this afternoon, so who knows. He has tried flying in to various other locations and trying to get connections to here, but no luck with that either. Everything is booked full.

Any advice, besides beating ones head against the wall?

He should be compensated. Let us know how it works out.

Put a few more beers in the fridge.

How frustrating. I hope he gets home tonight.

When he does contact United, he should stick to the airline-related matters. What happened with the shuttle to the Radisson isn't United's doing. It was one more bad thing to happen in a crummy weekend, but I would not launch into that in registering a complaint. That isn't United's fault. I've found in dealing with customer-service issues -- from both sides -- that getting to the point, and not going into matters that don't apply, is far more more effective. :)

Well he did get on that last standby flight!

Yes, the Radisson issue is separate from the United one. But the voucher was from United so they should know that who they are doing business with is not very professional. The good thing is he is excellent on writing these type of letters. His letter to Radisson is already done, lol!

And yes...he will need more than 1 beer when he gets home, lol!