[OWen]

To Whom It May Concern:
My mother and daughter were traveling on 05/29/2012 from San Francisco to Ukraine on three airlines ( on a Swiss Airlines code share): Flight #1 was on United from SF to Chicago, flight # 2 was with Swiss from Chicago to Zurich and Flight #3 was with Ukrainian Airlines to Kiev. My daughter is only 13 years old and this was her first flight without me (her mother). In addition, her grandmother accompanying her does not speak English. these reasons are why we made sure to get seat reservations together for the United flight and Swiss flight way back in January.

Since we had two different confirmation numbers for my mother and daughter (my daughter's flight was booked separate because she will be returning to the US with me in July) and domestic AND international flights, we asked for the assistant to help to get boarding passes. The assistant was busy and told as to do it ourselves. I tried 3 times but still needed some help. I asked again and got the answer that I had to wait... and nobody knew when somebody would be available to help.

Finally, maybe in 20 minutes waiting and trying, some body started to help us. The assistant did something wrong with my daughter's ticket and started over again. But before that, he canceled my daughter's reserved seat and gave her another one, far away from her grandma. I asked him to change it and give as the correct seats that we reserved in January, but he said he could not do anything about the seat assignment and we needed to contact Swiss to change the seat. My husband called Swiss as soon as he got home and they confirmed that the United agent had cancelled the reservation for seat for my daughter. Now we had a lot of trouble to change back my daughter's seat to be together with her grandma. I just want to relate how unprofessional the United agent was. Because he made a mistake he then cancelled my daughter's reserved seat and then refused to fix it. I am very disappointed of the service from United.

Sincerely,
Olena W

[jimworcs]

Sadly, this the attitude of US based airline staff. They have totally lost touch with the customer and have no empathy. You did everything right to try and make this go smoothly. He did everything wrong and caused you stress. In future when travelling to Europe try to make the journey on an EU based airline. They are far from perfect, but generally speaking, they will try and sort out problems like this.

[OWen]

Your are right there. KLM, Lufthansa and Swiss international agents are much more competent AND considerate.

[astrolqueen]

Thought I would fly United but had a problem from the beginning with the ticket price when purchasing online--when calling United all I got was transfers and ended up paying price plus taxes added on--it was like a never ending loop when calling United--transfer the problem so you just give up. No one could tell me the actual price online the day before so I just paid. My only recourse I decided was no extra luggage equals $50 less dollars to United and no meals on board. Well made three seat reservations for return when calling but no luck on first segment of trip . I was assigned a seat when going online for boarding pass and had choice of 2 or 3 middle seats--oh well--on return trip to Florida thru Denver my name was called at gate and attendant just took boarding pass and said I am putting you in an aisle seat in the front. Did I want an aisle seat--NO-well out came the hostility because I did not want to give up my seat so a family could sit together. Thats nice but I am a senior citizen and wanted a window seat so I could rest my head but did that count for anything--guess not. Then I was informed they would accomodate me since I mentioned I would want to write a letter about this and was told seats are not guaranteed--even though I had reserved it through United the day after the trip--gee were they overbooked? I did end up getting what a window seat but what shocked me was both desk attendents talked to me in a very demeaning tone and it was my fault because I was not patient enough--easily just turned around--I know they were busy but there was no-- I am sorry just hold on-- it was all that very demaning tone and citing the airline rules. Sorry I just did not go along with their plans and they must think it was easy to intimade a senior citizen. Plus another thing I noticed was a lot of United employees were talking amoungst themselves when they should have been paying attention to customers or at least move out of sight of the passengers if you want to carry on a conversation. Plus no announcement of delayed boarding time in Denver. I think United needs to seriously retrain their employees and especially how they treat their SENIOR CITIZEN travellers. My next trip to Montana will not be on United if I can help it.