Cancelled flights recovery
 

I have a tale of travel woe, but one that is not all that uncommon. It begs a few questions whose answers might prove useful in the future for me or for fellow travellers. As I write this I should be in Paris contemplating my trip to Le Mans to attend tommorrow's running of the annual 24 Hours of Le Man auto race. Unfortunately, last evening my United flight from Washington to Paris was cancelled. I had made the reservations in March. In fact, both of yesterday's United flights from Dulles to CDG were cancelled. United says that bad weather in Washington created available crewing problems for both 777's. The United representative at Akron/Canton worked the phones and computer for over two hours trying to find an alternative routing with me standing all the while at his counter. This is the peak travel time. Most flights, especially to Europe, are booked/overbooked. He could not get me to Paris until sometime next week. He checked numerous airlines through many different airports. The closest he came was a routing that started at 8AM this morning in Ohio, thru Chicago, onto Los Angeles, and arriving in Paris late tomorrow afternoon. Now the questions: <BR> <BR>What could I, should I, have done differently to get a flight? The United rep worked hard for me, to his credit, but is there something that I could have been doing to help myself? Call someone myself? Could I have had better luck? I keep telling myself that with two booked 777's worth of cancelled travellers trying to get a limited number of available seats, if any at all, I was SOL. <BR> <BR>Can I recover any of my non-refundable prepaid expenses? For instance, I have several hundred dollars worth of tickets for the Le Mans race which starts at 1600 on Saturday. How about the international phone calls to try to cancel reservations and hopefully get refunds? If so, how would you recommend that I go about it. The local United rep suggested that I call United's Customer Relations and plead my case. Any better ideas or approaches? What am I entitled to because United did not have crews available? <BR>

For Joe.

Wow. How could United cancel two 777s flights to Paris! I would think that they make a lot of money on those flights and suffer a lot of grief when they cancel them. You have my sincere sympathy. Hopefully, things will improve for you. I would recommend that you do as much as possible in writing (in conjunction with phone calls)to get compensation.

Wow. This is a traveler's ultimate nightmare. I hope someone can help Joe out here, and the rest of us for future reference in the event ...

Wow Joe, what problems! Did you take our travel insurance? That should cover some of your non-refundable expenses. And you could write a few letters if the insurance doesn't cough up, backed up with a letter from United stating your situation. <BR>As to what to do in the future, is it possible to book several flights going at about the same day and getting a refund for the ones you don't use? In Australia this is possible with no shows on flights, so might be the go where you are too. Possibly worth a try anyhow. Let us know how you go.