A couple of days back I wrote about an issue that we had during our trip to Oslo. Our flight home was cancelled due to an approaching winter storm coming to the NYC area.
After having a nice (extra) day in Oslo, we headed to the airport for our flight home a day later than originally planned. While there I had a couple of conversations with other stranded passengers who were also on our flight. I found out that while United told me that I was on my own in booking my accomodations, these 2 other passengers had their hotel stay and meals covered by the airline.
This new found information led me to have a discussion with United’s only surpervisor at Oslo Airport (OSL). Check out my post Hey United, I Want My $158+ Back if you are curious about the rules and regulations that I discovered.
After writing my post and following the United Supervisor’s instructions on how to claim my money back for our hotel stay and meals, I was shocked at the automated response that I received.
I filled out a form on united.com/feedback and received an automated response soon after. I expected to find out that I would be contacted within a couple of days but the message stated:
Thank you for contacting United Airlines. Our Customer Care team is currently responding to most inquiries within 14-21business days.
14-21 days seems a bit ridiculous! It’s quite a long time to have to wait to attempt to resolve an issue that I was misinformed about. It makes me wonder, just how many people are on United’s Customer Care Team?
I then decided to see if there was any other way to get a quicker response about my claim.
I find United to have a pretty weak social media presence but they seem to be trying a bit harder these days. I figured that it was worth sending a tweet to find out if there was a quicker way to get a response for my issue. In the past when contacting American Airlines and Delta, this technique got me surprisingly good results!
I sent this tweet to United:
And this was their response:
I sent one more tweet to United which got no response:
So there you have it. I am stuck waiting so I can’t really deal with this issue until I receive a response. Maybe I should give United a call but I just don’t think that will accomplish anything.
What do you think: Is 14-21 days a fair amount of time to wait for a response from United?
Points With A Crew- That’s exactly how I feel. What is this some small operation!
James- That is ridiculous! I’ve always been more of an AA kind of guy than UA!
Daniel S.- Sounds like another case of United chasing away business! AA is much more receptive to customer issues.
Jon- Thank you!
Steve- The DOT really has nothing to do with this. In the U.S. I would have no rights due to a weather cancellation. Since this flight was leaving from Norway, United has to follow the EU261 policy which gives flyers rights for cancellations.
I might be filing a complaint very soon if I don’t get a response or the one I like.
Just file a DOT complaint, that will get you at least a ‘real’ response in the same time frame vs the cut/paste one you are going to get.
Sadly, this is “normal” for United Customer Service. Best of luck to you.
You aren’t alone. My new company pays only Y – so I asked how can I upgrade bookings made through Concur? That was in November and I was aksed to wait for 14 days. And I am still waiting.
So why the hell should I fly United?
BTW: American got this trip – answer: no prob, just fare difference + change fee
I tried a status match with United 2 years ago. I had been flying AA / Oneworld for many years, and moved to an area with a United Hub. I sent in all the paperwork, and they said they would get back to me in 6 weeks! I assumed that it was just a canned response and that it really wouldn’t take that long. All emails sent to United in the following few weeks did not get any response. Sure enough 6 weeks later, United responded granting the status match. By that time, I had already flown 2 trips from US to South America and had given up on United and gone back to American Airlines. It sounds to me like the ridiculously long response times from United are pretty standard.
I don’t think 14-21 days is a reasonable SLA response time for anyone this side of “1 guy working out of his basement” (which I assume that United is not) 😀