Irony of the Airlines

As my travels (work and pleasure) have increased over the years I've found the intricacies and nuances of flying to be a delicate balancing act of a love and hate relationship. I recently traveled to Boston/Cape Cod and upon my return to Chicago was stranded at the airport. United delayed and delayed my flight for about 6 hours and then finally canceled it at 12:15am - they offered no hotel vouchers, meal vouchers or even a free flight voucher. In fact, every hotel within a 50 mile radius is sold out. Luckily, I had hedged my bets earlier in the evening by double booking on the 5:30am flight the following day and by registering as standby on every other flight to Chicago so when this flight was canceled, I was automatically booked onto the 5:30am flight the following day. Some passengers were not so lucky and were stuck in Boston for two more days!

With the flight canceled, no hotels available and a flight that required a security clearing at 4:30am the next day, I stayed at the airport and attempted to relax. This experience made me BITTER towards United. This was on Tuesday, June 24th.

Now, on my return flight from Orlando scheduled for Sunday, July 6th, I was booked to fly out at 2:19pm on another United flight. We received a call on Saturday from United telling us they overbooked the flight and asked if we would volunteer to take an earlier flight and we'd receive $100 certificate each towards a future flight. Sure, no problem. Then we get to the airport and the earlier flight we agreed to has been oversold, too. They are looking for volunteers and offering free flight vouchers this time. We volunteered and were booked on the 3:35 flight and standby on the original 2:19 flight.

Here's the kicker: we end up flying first class on the same plane we were originally booked plus we end up with $200 in gift certificates towards future flights AND two free ticker vouchers for future flights. United basically gave us $800 worth of flights and put us up in first class (where we had drinks for free the whole flight home) on the same plane we were supposed to be on from the beginning.

My scale of love and hate was tilted strongly towards hate after the Boston fiasco but United has tipped the scales closer to even with this Orlando deal. Crazy, crazy airlines!