[frankjr]

Dear Customer Service:

We traveled on 1 March, Flight 379 from IAD to DEN followed by Flight 1543 to RNO. The pilot informed us you (United management) chose to offload our skis (and a bunch of bowling balls) to make room for some commercial cargo at DEN. We assumed that, of course, he was kidding. No one would offload paid passengers’ luggage that was critical to next day activities! Especially our ski partners’ luggage marked PRIORITY!

On arrival at RNO in the late afternoon – NO SKIS! You promised delivery to our Tahoe City ski accommodations by 10 PM. NO SKIS! Your website told us in the morning that the skis had been delivered between midnight and 0300 on 2 March. NO SKIS! Your help line promised delivery by 9 AM. NO SKIS! Your help line promised delivery by 1130 AM. NO SKIS! Your help line promised delivery by 1330. They finally came via a very confused delivery person. Too late to ski!

The misinformation from United cost us 25% of our $2,500 vacation! We would have picked the skis up in Reno (55 minutes) if we had been told the truth - they were still there at 8 AM. We would have rented skis at 9 AM if we had known our skis would be delivered later. And a business class customer spent over 4 hours on the phone with “Bangalore”, who had no knowledge of anything except an apparent policy to refuse to let us talk directly to the confused delivery company so they could find the house.

All we really needed was accurate information on the effect of your irresponsible management action in removing our and our ski partners’ luggage (some marked PRIORITY) from the plane in Denver. Now we need compensation for the loss of 25% of our $2,500 ski vacation. As you will undoubtedly notice when you access our records, we both hold substantial frequent flyer balances and have earned Premier status for numerous periods over the years. We fully understand the travails the airline industry continues to confront, and we are glad you are back to financial health. We look forward to you compensating us appropriately for what we lost as a result of extremely poor management judgments.

Sincerely,

Frank E. Doe, Jr.

Donna C. Shelton