I've flown United for a solid 8 or 9 years now and have accumulated more than 100k miles. Never once had I ever had a super negative experience as most of my experiences were either average or just bad (which is normal). But this past 24 hours has been purely infuriating.
My first flight was delayed a solid 2 hours which guaranteed me that I was going to miss my connection to London. However, the kind desk agent told me that the pilot wanted to leave early and that I could make my connection in time. I get onboard and we somehow get delayed on the tarmac for a solid 45 minutes. This means I completely miss the last flight that night out to London. The next flight would be at 9 in the morning the next day. Great. 9 hours in the airport and I need to go to customer service to ask for accommodations and food vouchers.
I get to Newark airpot (my layover to London) and rush directly to United customer service front desk. Just my luck! The agent tells me that an earlier flight to London has been delayed all the way to then and that she could add me on to the flight. Perfect, I thought, I was gonna make it to London that night with no hiccups. A minute later (as soon as I get my new ticket from the agent), they announced that the flight will be delayed for 4 hours and will be leaving at around 4 morning. That's not too bad, I can just chill at the airport for a few hours and get some reading/eating done.
As I was sitting down looking at the menu at some crappy airport bar/restaurant (only place opened) for dinner, I get a text. "Your flight to London is canceled due to aircraft maintenance." Are. You. Shitting. Me. As I grabbed my bags and barreled out of the overpriced restaurant (seriously I saw a $30 burger), I muttered many expletives under my breath as I knew the customer service desk was going to be completely swamped. I quickly started calling United customer service to get my flight changed while in line. 30 minutes later, as I was still in line, the United representative on the phone tells me the earliest flight (the 9 am one the next day) was fully booked and that the next earliest one would be 6 pm. Oh boy. After another hour and a half in line, I finally get my accommodations and food vouchers from the front desk agent.
It's like 2 in the morning and I rush to the airport shuttle because I just want to sleep. I arrive at the hotel with no issues. I get a good nights rest and now I feel much more energetic to take on United. After eating a $20 burger (courtesy of United) I'm hoping that the rest of the day is smooth sailing. They even gave me $200 credit for a future United flight! Wow thanks United!
I think over the course of last 24 hours, I had my ticket changed like 6 or 7 times due to seat and flight changes. What an unlucky day.