[ymickay]

Picked up my tickets and checked my bags at the counter for my trip to Vietnam from Montreal via a connecting flight in Washington and the to Tokyo to finally Ho Chi Min. I go through security, then make my way to the US customs. The agent scans my Passport and then ask me if I was ever arrested and my answer was no and that was true. Never was! He then directs me to a waiting area and was told to wait for someone to come and talk to me. I was going to call the airline to tell them that I was detained at customs< but a big sign showing usage of your cell phone was not permitted. Affer more then a hour and still no one coming, I finally come to the conclusion I was going to miss my flight. It eventually came down I was refused boarding and once all the red tape done, there was a representative of United Airlines in the custom area waiting for me to guide me to my bags. Here where the real problems started. I asked what would happened to my tickets I purchased and was told to call customer service. Did that and after over 4 hours of back and forth useless conversation, I was told to call the online travel agent witch is FareBoom.com. Did that and was told at first there was a fee of $220.00 for changing them and difference in the cost of the fare if they would be some. I said fine but it would need to be certain that I would not connect to the US. 3 times I paid on my credit card and 3 times I was denied because I had to have a a united airlines flight included even when United is part of the Star alliance. Now I had to buy a complete new set of tickets at a cost of $1172 and United still has my $782 from my original purchase and giving the go around with my agent who is trying to at least get a refund for it or part of it. they say I was a no show! I know for a fact that they where aware of all this because I heard the customs agent talk to them on the phone while he was holding my tickets and Passport! That was more then a hour before boarding with me sitting there having no idea what was going on and nobody seemed to care much!