Flight Delay Question

[have2getaway]

My DH and I and our 3 boys just returned from a Disney/Universal trip. We flew United and our flight was canceled twice. We ended up having to stay 3 extra nights and incurred additional expenses as a result. We were thankful that we weren’t charged additional fees by the airline to fly home, but I later heard that sometimes airlines will cover other expenses, such as meals and cost of hotel. It never occurred to me to ask. I assumed this would be at our expense. Should we ask now about a reimbursement or was my first assumption correct? Should I have bothered asking when our flight was canceled? We flew United Airlines. TIA

 

[Brer Chump]

Review Rule 24 of United’s Contract of Carriage here.

 

[bumbershoot]

3 days? Yikes. Was your home airport closed?

Depends on the reason the flights were delayed. Yes you should have asked at the time. I don’t know if you might get anything now. Doesn’t hurt to try.

Since I don’t know your exact circumstances, this might be absolutely not applicable to you, but for the future.... never let the airline reassign your flight. Be proactive. Know what flights are open, what seats are open. Call. Insist they look at the flights they are seeing.

They can and do put people in first class when they booked coach, when problems show up.

If family members are old and brave enough, let them sit separately; that opens up options.

Check your rebooked flights often. If they are cancelled, be the first to call; don’t wait to be informed of the change.

If you live near more than one airport, be open to flying to the other one.

 

[have2getaway]

Review Rule 24 of United’s Contract of Carriage here.

3 days? Yikes. Was your home airport closed?

Depends on the reason the flights were delayed. Yes you should have asked at the time. I don’t know if you might get anything now. Doesn’t hurt to try.

Since I don’t know your exact circumstances, this might be absolutely not applicable to you, but for the future.... never let the airline reassign your flight. Be proactive. Know what flights are open, what seats are open. Call. Insist they look at the flights they are seeing.

They can and do put people in first class when they booked coach, when problems show up.

If family members are old and brave enough, let them sit separately; that opens up options.

Check your rebooked flights often. If they are cancelled, be the first to call; don’t wait to be informed of the change.

If you live near more than one airport, be open to flying to the other one.

Review Rule 24 of United’s Contract of Carriage here.

Thank you! Yes. We were supposed to fly out on a Sunday and ended up not being able to fly out until Wednesday morning. It worked out okay. We had money in savings, so it’s not like we went in debt for the extra days, but...it definitely added expenses that we hadn’t planned for. We were at the Polynesian and, unfortunately, it was just too expensive for us to stay there, but we were able to secure a reasonable AP rate at Royal Pacific at UO, so we went there until we flew out. In hindsight, we should have asked, but we had already checked out of the Poly and were so focused on finding another flight, that we never thought to ask. This was all due to Storm Harper, which was a pretty severe blizzard affecting the Northeast.

I will certainly ask United, but with zero expectations for any compensation. As you said, it can’t hurt to ask.

 

[sam_gordon]

This was all due to Storm Harper, which was a pretty severe blizzard affecting the Northeast.

That means it's weather related, which means the airline isnt responsible for the added costs. You can call and ask, but I wouldnt expect anything.

 

[have2getaway]

That means it's weather related, which means the airline isnt responsible for the added costs. You can call and ask, but I wouldnt expect anything.

I won’t bother then. This is pretty much what we thought. I figured if it was mechanical, it might be different. It honestly wasn’t the end of the world to be stuck at the Magic Kingdom and Universal Studios in Orlando while our friends in the north were snowed in.

 

[Woodview]

Did you have Travel Insurance ...... If Not why Not ?

 

[writerguyfl]

Did you have Travel Insurance ...... If Not why Not ?

For many people, travel insurance isn't worth the expense. It can be cheaper to simply pay your own way when something happens instead of paying an insurance company for nothing except peace of mind.

Example: I take 4 or 5 trips annually. At least two of them involve traveling by air. Literally, in the past two decades, I had one trip that required paying out of pocket due to a problem that would have been covered by travel insurance. It was paying for a hotel room for one night.

Basically, I paid about $100 for that incident. Currently, an annual travel insurance plan costs about $130. That's for one year. When you multiple that by 20 years, the math is obvious.

Note: I'm referring to domestic travel for a US resident. Once you leave the country, the calculations change. The coverage for medical evacuation could save you hundreds of thousands of dollars in some situations.

 

[MouseyMin]

Check your credit cards - some of them have trip interruption insurance as part of the benefits.

 

[EACarlson]

Check your credit cards - some of them have trip interruption insurance as part of the benefits.

This is why I keep my Chase Sapphire Preferred and it's $95 annual fee, well that and the primary car rental insurance.

 

[Redarrow5150]

For many people, travel insurance isn't worth the expense. It can be cheaper to simply pay your own way when something happens instead of paying an insurance company for nothing except peace of mind.

Example: I take 4 or 5 trips annually. At least two of them involve traveling by air. Literally, in the past two decades, I had one trip that required paying out of pocket due to a problem that would have been covered by travel insurance. It was paying for a hotel room for one night.

Basically, I paid about $100 for that incident. Currently, an annual travel insurance plan costs about $130. That's for one year. When you multiple that by 20 years, the math is obvious.

Note: I'm referring to domestic travel for a US resident. Once you leave the country, the calculations change. The coverage for medical evacuation could save you hundreds of thousands of dollars in some situations.

If I'm traveling from Michigan in the winter to anywhere I would get the insurance. During the summer not so much. If I'm spending over $5k on trip like a WDW trip in the winter insurance is worth it. It's funny people hate insurance except when the one time you need it.

 

[writerguyfl]

If I'm traveling from Michigan in the winter to anywhere I would get the insurance. During the summer not so much. If I'm spending over $5k on trip like a WDW trip in the winter insurance is worth it. It's funny people hate insurance except when the one time you need it.

For the record, I'm not hating on travel insurance. I'm merely providing an economic analysis of why people like me don't see it as a particularly wise purchase.

I won’t bother then. This is pretty much what we thought. I figured if it was mechanical, it might be different. It honestly wasn’t the end of the world to be stuck at the Magic Kingdom and Universal Studios in Orlando while our friends in the north were snowed in.

Honestly, a three day delay is excessive...even in a major weather event. I agree with the opinion that United will not reimburse any of your expenses.

That said, chances are strong that they will offer a service recovery gesture in the form of United frequent flyer miles, if asked. The easiest way to do this is the use the web form on the United site:
https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/customer/customercare

Keep it short and simple. Just 3 or 4 sentences expressing your disappointment at the extended delay in getting your party to their destination. Example:

My family experienced a 3-day delay recently due to winter weather. I understand that recovering from hundreds of canceled flights is not easy. Still, I was disappointed with the lack of options for getting my family back home.

Provided you don't complain about every flight you take on United, there's really no downside to providing this feedback.

 

[bumbershoot]

Honestly, a three day delay is excessive...even in a major weather event.

I agree.
My brain must have frozen in the pacific NW’s recent snowpicalypse because I just wasn’t aware that there were east coast airports that were closed for that many days! Wild!

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

If I'm traveling from Michigan in the winter to anywhere I would get the insurance. During the summer not so much. If I'm spending over $5k on trip like a WDW trip in the winter insurance is worth it. It's funny people hate insurance except when the one time you need it.

What the OP experienced is something that can happen any time you fly. If you don't get trip insurance in the summer then you're not subscribing to your own advice.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Honestly, a three day delay is excessive...even in a major weather event. I agree with the opinion that United will not reimburse any of your expenses.

I do think majority of people who have these kinds of things tend to get delayed a day maybe 2 days and so 3 days just seems really bad. I'm not really sure I would consider it excessive just by the amount of days because there are a lot of factors involved including how many inital flights were cancelled and delayed (causing a back up), how many passengers were impacted, how large of an area was impacted by the storm system, etc.

In the middle of this past November my sister-in-law and father-in-law went to the New York area. They flew to Chicago as a connection. When they got to Chicago their flight to the New York area was cancelled and it was because the winter storm in the Northeast area. That was on a Thursday and the next flight they could get on was Saturday night. They ended up renting a car and chancing driving 12 hrs even knowing the bad weather and they did make it. It amounted to about a 2 1/2 day delay had they waited it out in Chicago.

I'm not saying 3 days doesn't bite because it absolutely does without a doubt.

 

[sam_gordon]

I agree.
My brain must have frozen in the pacific NW’s recent snowpicalypse because I just wasn’t aware that there were east coast airports that were closed for that many days! Wild!

I don't know that any airport closed for that long, but there's a domino affect from having just one day's flights cancelled... they have to put everyone on those flights onto other flights, etc, etc.

 

[Redarrow5150]

What the OP experienced is something that can happen any time you fly. If you don't get trip insurance in the summer then you're not subscribing to your own advice.

My experience here in the midwest is winter causes far more issues with traveling than during the summer.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

My experience here in the midwest is winter causes far more issues with traveling than during the summer.

I'm also in the midwest...But that really doesn't matter.

A delay or cancellation can happen no matter the time of year. It can happen in another part of the country completely different than your own and the weather can be very different than your home. Your added in comment of "It's funny people hate insurance except when the one time you need it." stays the same no matter when you actually fly as air travel comes with the possibility of delay or cancellation due to being outside the passenger's control. As I said though if you don't get trip insurance whenever you fly you're not subscribing to your own advice.

I've def. had situations completely outside of 'winter' (April, May, July, etc) due to weather, coming back from my honeymoon from an international destination due to the air traffic controller furloughs in April 2013, storms shutting down in the summer the north eastern airports (Boston, Newark, New Hampshire, etc), multiple delays in Texas due to weather (which is why we avoid TX if we can now lol), etc etc.

If you don't want to get trip insurance outside of wintertime that's your own perogative just like it is for for people who get it everytime they have a vacation or for those who don't get it at all. Still doesn't mean that everytime you fly without trip insurance that something can't happen causing a delay or cancellation.

 

[Redarrow5150]

I'm also in the midwest...But that really doesn't matter.

A delay or cancellation can happen no matter the time of year. It can happen in another part of the country completely different than your own and the weather can be very different than your home. Your added in comment of "It's funny people hate insurance except when the one time you need it." stays the same no matter when you actually fly as air travel comes with the possibility of delay or cancellation due to being outside the passenger's control. As I said though if you don't get trip insurance whenever you fly you're not subscribing to your own advice.

I've def. had situations completely outside of 'winter' (April, May, July, etc) due to weather, coming back from my honeymoon from an international destination due to the air traffic controller furloughs in April 2013, storms shutting down in the summer the north eastern airports (Boston, Newark, New Hampshire, etc), multiple delays in Texas due to weather (which is why we avoid TX if we can now lol), etc etc.

If you don't want to get trip insurance outside of wintertime that's your own perogative just like it is for for people who get it everytime they have a vacation or for those who don't get it at all. Still doesn't mean that everytime you fly without trip insurance that something can't happen causing a delay or cancellation.

I'm subscribing to my own advice. I've yet to travel at anytime IN MY LIFE and not had bad weather in the summer. Of course I'm not taking a $5-7k vacation to Disney or any other destination during the summer. Let me clarify by saying your spending a decent amount of money on a vacation trip insurance is probably a good idea.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I'm subscribing to my own advice. I've yet to travel at anytime IN MY LIFE and not had bad weather in the summer. Of course I'm not taking a $5-7k vacation to Disney or any other destination during the summer. Let me clarify by saying your spending a decent amount of money on a vacation trip insurance is probably a good idea.

To quote your own comment:

It's funny people hate insurance except when the one time you need it.

But I sincerely hope you never have to need it outside of wintertime- travel delays suck for sure. Being at the mercy of airline travel in general is always a risk no matter the cost of the trip.