United breaks guitars and cancels flights

Luckily for me, I don’t have or play a guitar, but I did have United cancel our flight. Is there any way to get them to compensate us for the additional money we had to spend when they unnecessarily canceled a flight? Our return trip from Denver was cancelled the night before due to “weather”. There was no weather and no other airlines cancelled flights. We were able to book a Frontier flight that had the almost exact flight times as the cancelled United flight, but we had to spend an extra $300. United just says “sorry, flight cancelled due to weather” and won’t respond further. I have filed a complaint with the FAA, but they are overwhelmed

It’s possible the plane or crew couldn’t make it to Denver because it was stuck in another city due to weather.

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This might help

I agree with Ole, it was probably an incoming flight for the crew or plane that had weather issues if there weren’t any at the outgoing airport or at the destination.

I agree that it was probably some other issue, but if so, then United should have worked to re-book us on another airline, instead of just saying “sorry, you can fly tomorrow”.

Airlines used to do that. Then the bean counters said: “We’re giving our business to our competitors!” Now it’s: “We’re going to wait until WE can fly you to your destination!”

Correct, the issue of not moving you to another airline when a flight gets cancelled is not unique to United. I don’t know of any airline that does that anymore. Also, no airline is immune from breaking stuff or losing luggage.

Correction: On a recent trip to Italy last month, our plane from Denver to Chicago suffered an engine failure on takeoff and we had to go back to the terminal. We subsequently missed our connection to Europe from Chicago. Once we got back to the terminal I called United customer service while waiting in line at the customer service desk. The agent on the phone spent about 45 minutes trying to get us to our destination in Italy. She succeeded by booking us on a Luftansa flight. So, not United, but a partner airline. So, I guess in some cases they will change airlines and I’m guessing to those that are with their “partner” airlines and maybe only in cases where they had a equipment failure or the like. After all the fuss, we arrived at our destination just 3 hours later than the original flights. They also gave us some food vouchers for use while we waited for our new flight. I thought they did a good job helping us that day.

There is a difference when the cause of delay or cancellation is caused by weather or something the airline is responsible for. If it’s weather related they have zero obligation to put you on another airline or provide any hotel or food vouchers.

I agree in general. However, a few years back my wife and I were both flying home through Denver on United at similar times but different planes and airports from New York. All the airports in the New York area were having delays due to weather, so we both missed the connection home once in Denver. United booked both of us on the same plane home the next morning, but those that missed connections on my flight got hotel rooms from United for the night and my wife’s plane didn’t. There’s some discretion somewhere.

Yes. Sometimes they do help even though they don’t have to.

Once I missed a flight home (totally my fault) and couldn’t get another one until the next morning. They booked me a room in a nearby hotel at the airline rate. I had to pay for the room but their negotiated rates with airport hotels are incredibly cheap. If I had booked it myself it would have cost twice as much.