My Christmas Eve Story

So my carefully laid travel plans for a visit to Vegas the week before Christmas were messed up a bit thanks to Orbitz.....

.....which led me to be in McCarran about 5:00 this morning at the United counter with my adult daughter, where the agent was doing his best to look for flights which did not include a 4+ hour lay-over in Chicago. But all the other options didn't work either, so we were going to just have to make the best of it.

Here's the Christmas Eve Story part:

A young lady next to us overheard the agent, AND offered out of the blue to drive us from her destination city to ours, which is about a 2+ hour drive. She was "sortof" going in that direction anyway, or was at least willing to modify her plans to give us a ride.

We didn't accept, and ended up getting home at a reasonable hour anyway thanks to enuff standby seats being available on an earlier flight, BUT I thought it was a super nice thing to offer to try and help us get home.

It wasn`t in the back of a U-Haul truck with a polka band was it?

What happened with your flight that got messed up?

Quote: GWAE

What happened with your flight that got messed up?

I booked the non-stop flights I wanted via ORBITZ.

- 2 Days before the departure, their automatic e-mail showed my original itinerary that I had booked months ago.

- BUT when I got to the airport, I learned that United had dropped that particular flight, and I had just missed the earlier flight that I had been rescheduled on but that ORBITZ didn't tell me about the change.

- The return flight was also no longer a non-stop, and now I had a 4+ hour lay-over to look forward to.

Quote: JohnnyQ

I booked the non-stop flights I wanted via ORBITZ.

- 2 Days before the departure, their automatic e-mail showed my original itinerary that I had booked months ago.

- BUT when I got to the airport, I learned that United had dropped that particular flight, and I had just missed the earlier flight that I had been rescheduled on but that ORBITZ didn't tell me about the change.

- The return flight was also no longer a non-stop, and now I had a 4+ hour lay-over to look forward to.

Oh wow. That would have been stressful to miss the first flight. I have always wondered what happens when you miss a flight. Do they charge you to get on another?

I suppose it probably depends on the circumstances and which airline you are booked on.

UNITED was fantastic trying to help. But there are only so many flights and so many seats. We got the last 2 standby seats to get to DENVER (and then on to Vegas). On the way back, we were able to get 2 standby seats on an earlier flight in Chicago, so we didn't end up with a 4 hour lay-over.

But still extremely frustrating that this came up in the first place with ORBITZ. They were the exact opposite of UNITED. ORBITZ didn't help out at all.

My story? From 2am to 4pm I was either driving or in a casino.

Merry Christmas everyone.

JQ, did Orbitz do anything to compensate you? I am glad united was helpful especially since it was booked through an agent opposed to through them, although I guess it was their fault for changing the flights in the first place.

Quote: GWAE

Oh wow. That would have been stressful to miss the first flight. I have always wondered what happens when you miss a flight. Do they charge you to get on another?

I don't think they do if (a) you decide to fly standby or (b) it was the airline's fault - a couple of years ago, I had a flight from San Francisco to Columbus via O'Hare, but the first leg was delayed by 2 hours because the plane was stuck in Los Angeles for some reason, so it would arrive after the second leg took off; United let me switch the second leg to a later flight (and I do mean "later" - it arrived at 12:30 AM and was pretty much the last plane into Columbus that night) without a charge. Normally, I think it's something like $200 for a "voluntary" change of a non-refundable fare.

There's also something called the "flat tire rule"; if you miss your flight by two hours or less (because you "had a flat tire" getting to the airport), most airlines will put you on standby on another flight without charge.

Quote: GWAE

Oh wow. That would have been stressful to miss the first flight. I have always wondered what happens when you miss a flight. Do they charge you to get on another?

I missed my outgoing flight bc I wanted to book an earlier flight out. Buying an earlier ticket was About the same price to change I figured.

I didn't know that if you miss any connecting flight without notifying the airline, they will cancel all connecting flights outbound and inbound. I was notified by check in desk that my flights were canceled. I spent hours on the fone trying to get some sort of credit or boarding pass for my original flight. I tried Orbitz and airlines with no luck. Orbitz and the airlines would blame the other for the inability to do anything. I had to buy another ticket.