Let me tell you a story.
A few months back I went out to the West Coast to help take care of my nephews for a month. Currently I have a lot of flexibility about where I base myself. My brother and sister-in-law needed some extra help because of work schedules. It ended up being a really nice trip. I got to spend a lot of quality family time with people I don’t get to see all that often.
Then came my trip home.
I bought a ticket for an overnight flight on United Airlines. When I’m flying across multiple
time zones, I find the red eye is the easiest way to shake off long-term jet lag. Those flights also tend to be the cheapest.
I checked in for my flight. This included paying a $40 fee for baggage. An hour or two before I headed to the airport I checked the United app. I spotted a big price drop for seat that was open in First Class. I don’t fly First Class all that much, and this price was too good to pass up. I snagged it.
Now on United Airlines flying First Class means that you get two checked bags for free. I thought it was a bit odd when I didn’t see an automatic refund for the bag I had already paid to check when it looked like I was flying in Economy, but I shrugged it off. Maybe it takes a day or two to process those refunds I reasoned.
Off I went to the airport. I have a membership in a service called Priority Pass, which grants you access to lounges all over the world. It’s pretty convenient. There’s normally a lounge where you can pass the time. You can get a free meal there instead of paying unfathomable prices for food at a airport restaurant.
Then it came time to board the plane.
All seemed well. Then suddenly we heard an announcement that the flight could not take off. We would be delayed over 12 hours until the next morning. We could collect our baggage at the carousel.
It was after 10:30 in the evening local time. This was pretty inconvenient.
Through the United app I noticed that they have a service called Agent on Demand. From what I gather, this is a chatbox that allows you to communicate with somebody who can help you out. United encourages passengers to use this app during long delays.
I got onto the “virtual queue” and saw that the wait would be around 30 minutes. The app timed out around 20 minutes later on me after my bag was retrieved.
On their website, United notes the following:
If your flight is delayed or canceled for reasons outside our control, we may be able to get you discounted hotel stays and free toiletries.
Well that would require me to be able to actually communicate with somebody at United. The long wait on the app they promote for situations like this, and the fact it timed out before I could speak with someone rendered it useless.
I called my brother. I woke the poor guy up. He woke up around midnight to unlock the door to let me in. He had an early wake up call the next morning and wasn’t feeling well.
After I arrived back in his house I got ready for bed. I checked my e-mail and saw that United had sent me an e-mail.
We’re sorry about the changes to your travel plans. We’d like to help by providing a meal voucher for everyone on your trip.
- Good for food and drinks
- One-time use
Always check acceptance with merchant prior to ordering. Must be redeemed by date and time listed on voucher. Valid at U.S. restaurants and concessionaires only. May not be redeemed onboard your flight.
The credit was for $20. It indicated that it expired the next day.
I don’t know about you, but in this day and age I’m not sure many airport meals could be bought with $20.
This was a bit much. Look, you can’t blame United for the flight being delayed. That isn’t their fault. They don’t control the weather.
But after my flight got delayed, I received zero proactive support. Their customer service app had a long delay and then crashed on me. I had to wake up my sick brother to let me in. I had to pay for an Uber to get to his house and would have to pay for one back to the airport the next day. And on top of this, the extent of United’s proactive response was to pay for part of a meal at the airport. Remember, I had upgraded to First Class. I expected a level of service that was a bit higher than this.
I sent a message through their website that I was disappointed in their lack of assistance. I went out of my way to not be rude. I tried to make it clear that I didn’t hold them responsible for the delay, but I felt that after paying for a First Class upgrade that I shouldn’t be stranded without any help from United like this.
Well I went back to the airport. With my Priority Pass access I went to the lounge and had breakfast. Then I boarded my flight. It was uneventful. On board, I thought the service was genuinely excellent. The flight attendants went above and beyond.
I landed back on the East Coast. My expectation was that United’s customer service team would engage me and acknowledge their service failures, and we could move forward.
That’s where this story really begins.
A few days after I arrived home, I got this message from United.
Hi John,
I’m sorry to hear about the disappointing experience you had during your recent trip. I can understand how frustrating it must have been to deal with the baggage fee concerns after upgrading to first class, the overnight delay, and the difficulties you encountered with our app while trying to resolve these issues. Your feedback is valuable to us and will be shared with our team to help us improve.
I researched the details of the flight and found that the flight was delayed due to weather which is considered an event outside of United’s control, so it is not eligible for compensation or reimbursement.
As a goodwill gesture, I am going to deposit 10000 miles into your account. These miles never expire and can be used for travel or purchases on flights and more.
I have processed the refund of the checked bag in the original form of payment. The transaction generally takes 1-2 billing cycles from the refund date to appear on the credit card statement. I have also forwarded the details of the refund for the checked bag to your registered email address.
We completed our review and approved a payment of $42 USD.
In the next 24 hours, you’ll get an email from ___________. The email has a link to a secure portal where you can claim your payment. The link expires in 60 days, so claim your payment as soon as possible. (Tip: Check your junk mail if you do not see this email within 24 hours.)
You must enter your Case ID to accept the payment. Make sure there are no extra spaces before or after the Case ID when you submit. The portal will lock your account after too many failed attempts.
Case ID: _____________
If you need help or have any other questions, reply to this email.
Thank you for flying United and for being a MileagePlus member. We hope to have the opportunity to welcome you on board another United flight and provide you with the level of service you expect and deserve.
Now on one hand you might say that’s something. 10,000 United miles is more tangible than a $20 meal. But this letter fell short of actually addressing my concerns. After all, I didn’t criticize United for the flight being delayed. I criticized them for their lack of customer service after the delay.
And a small amount of research revealed that this was a form letter United sends as a template. Beyond that, 10,000 miles is a common award for minor in flight inconveniences like your seat not fully reclining or the WiFi not working on your flight. I was flying First Class, and United’s technological failures impacted me during an overnight delay. Frankly, the more I read this the more it felt like United trying to offer me the bare minimum so they could claim they compensated me and maybe get me to shut up.
They also mentioned they approved a $42 payment. They didn’t really clarify, but I assumed that’s the baggage fee that was refunded. And if that’s the case…well I was due that anyway. It wasn’t really generosity.
Honestly it wasn’t about the amount of compensation I got. I really just wanted somebody at United to engage with me and acknowledge their shortcomings during this experience. I mean if this is going to be the sort of customer service I get after upgrading to First Class during a delay, I have serious questions about whether I should be flying this airline.
So I sent a reply. I mentioned how disappointed I was with their service. I asked them to genuinely engage with their shortcomings. I also made it clear that this wasn’t an attempt to get them to bump up the number of points they gave me. In fact I even wrote, “I am not interested in a haggling game where miles are incrementally increased by the bare minimum you think will satisfy me.”
I received the following e-mail in reply.
Hi John,
I’m sorry that the compensation we offered didn’t meet your expectations.
As per our research, our previous agent has already provided you with an 10,000 miles, a reimbursement of $42 for food, and a refund for your baggage in the uncontrollable circumstances.
While I won’t be able to honor your request for further compensation, please know that I shared your feedback with the appropriate teams.We thank you for your continued loyalty, as a valued MileagePlus member.
Now I had a few thoughts at this point. One was that I clearly stated that I wasn’t trying negotiate with them for more compensation. I wanted them to engage with me on their failures. Also now the $42 was for food. Someone has to explain that one to me. As I mentioned, I ate at the airport lounge for free. I didn’t even use the $20 they sent me for food before it expired.
Things had started to take a frustrating turn. So I replied once again listing United’s failures through this process. I talked about the app timing out when I needed it. I mentioned the inconvenience waking up my brother. But by now the list was growing. Suddenly they were portraying the baggage refund I was due even had the flight departed on time was an act of goodwill. And now there’s this mystery $42 for food. I still don’t know what it is.
On top of this, I had by now filed a claim with my credit card company. Fortunately they have travel insurance which would provide me with reimbursement for the Uber from the airport after the delay and back to the airport the next morning. But it required documentation from United confirming the flight was delayed.
I asked for the case to be elevated to a senior customer service representative. I wanted to take this to a higher level.
This was the reply I got.
Hi JOHN,
I’m sorry that we can’t agree on how to best resolve this situation. We always want to reach a mutual understanding, and apologize for how this experience made you feel.
Unfortunately, I’m unable to offer goodwill compensation or reimburse your costs. This was the flight interruption out of our control.
While I won’t be able to honor to give you more goodwill compensation on this issue, please know that I shared your feedback with the appropriate teams. We’ll use your comments to review our procedures with your point of view in mind.We appreciate your business and look forward to providing you with the service you expect and deserve on a future United flight.
So United did not honor my request to have a manager look at my case. They did not send me the documentation I needed to be reimbursed for my Uber rides even though they explicitly promise to do just that upon request on their website. And they framed this as a disagreement “on how to best resolve the situation.” I was asking them to respond to specific issues I raised about their poor customer service.
That’s before we got into the incoherence of what certainly seemed like a poorly compiled copy and paste form letter.
Another thing stood out to me. They on multiple occasions told me that they had shared my feedback with the appropriate teams. What does that mean? I replied and asked.
May I ask specifically what feedback was sent and which teams it was sent to?
At this point it felt less like I was dealing with an airline and more like I was dealing with Kruger Industrial Smoothing.
This was the company George Costanza worked at during the final season of Seinfeld.
Their motto was, “We don’t care, and it shows.”
The company was best known for mishandling a smoothing job at the Statue of Liberty, which was noted on the show as the reason the statue is green.
The CEO is Mr. Kruger, an apathetic an inept business man who shows zero concern for his company’s failure.
At this point I felt little recourse but to try and e-mail United’s CEO, Scott Kirby. Mr. Kirby has a public facing e-mail address. So I sent him an e-mail.
Now I had no illusions that Mr. Kirby would personally answer my message. I simply know that for companies with a high public profile like a major airline, e-mails to the CEO are typically routed to a higher level customer service team. Beyond engaging with United’s customer service failures, I wanted clarity on what exactly this $42 food payment was. I also needed the written confirmation from United that the flight was delayed to get my Ubers reimbursed from my credit card company.
I laid out chapter and verse United’s failures since this flight. I talked about how their customer service app failed. I talked about the mystery $42. I talked about how they framed a baggage fee refund that I was due as an act of compensation for my troubles. I talked about how the customer service team mischaracterized my complaint as a request for greater compensation when I clearly asked them to engage with me over their failures. I talked about how my request to escalate this matter to a manager was not honored. And I talked about how United did not provide me with the written proof of delay I requested despite United’s own publicly stated policy requiring them to do just that.
While I waited for the reply, I did some research on Mr. Kirby. I found that he is quite a piece of work.
He evidently has a lot to say about some of his competitors.
The conversation also turned to the changing U.S. airline landscape, with Spirit Airlines’ bankruptcy and turbulence among ultra-low-cost carriers (ULCCs). Kirby did not mince words about the challenges facing that segment. “You can’t have a business model predicated on screwing the customer,” he said. “It’s fundamentally broken. Customers have voted – they don’t like that product.
As for United:
“It’s not just about schedule and network. It’s about great technology, great products like seatback entertainment, great service, and most importantly, how our people treat customers. There’s nothing that matters as much as that human connection when you walk on an airplane.”
Outstanding.
Anyway I waited two weeks and didn’t receive so much as an acknowledgement of receipt of my e-mail from United customer service.
Maybe Kirby actually did intend to write a personal reply but accidentally locked himself out of his office and decided to go home instead.
Enough was enough.
I decided to file a complaint with the Department of Transportation.
This started out as disappointment over poor customer service after a long delay. But after all of this I contend that United Airlines is in violation 49 U.S. Code § 41712.
This is a law that prohibits airlines from engaging in unfair or deceptive practices. My argument is that through things like framing a required baggage refund as goodwill, not delivering the proof in writing that the flight was delayed by weather for my credit card claim, and stating that my thoughts had been sent to the “appropriate teams” that United had engaged in these practices. They might not sound like much, but airlines have been fined for violations like these in the past.
They can’t just be one off instances of bad customer service to be considered a true violation. They have to be embedded in the airline’s practices. In my view, these incidents I experienced could be viewed as one offs on their own, but together they show a genuine pattern of deception. Whether the Department of Transportation will agree is a matter for them.
But I also did need the proof the delay was forced by weather. I also needed an explanation of the $42. And it would be nice if somebody from United would actually engage with me about their failures during this experience, which have become much more about their customer service department’s post-flight performance.
United replied a few days after I filed the claim.
The United States Department of Transportation has forwarded your concerns to our office and we welcome the opportunity to address them.
I’m sorry that your trip didn’t go as planned. Your time is valuable, and we always work to make sure your trip goes smoothly. I regret that the weather caused us to fall short in this instance.
ATC delays are frustrating for all those involved, and we’re working to create a better recovery process to improve our dependability. Please be assured it is never our intent to inconvenience our passengers in anyway, and I am very sorry your valid expectations of receiving optimal customer service have not been met in regards to this matter.
When a delay or cancellation is out of our control, we usually don’t offer compensation or reimbursement. However, as a tangible gesture of our regret, we deposited 10,000 award miles and processed a digital payment in the amount of $42. I will also send you a $150 electronic travel certificate that you can use towards the purchase of a United or United Express flight in the future. This will be sent via email within the next few business days.
Thanks for your willingness to express these concerns, and we hope your next trip with us will deliver the experience you deserve.
Yes, you read that correctly. United Airlines received a federal claim which accused them of replying with form letters instead of engaging with the substance of a customer complaint. They decided to respond to it with a form letter than didn’t engage with the substance of the complaint.
Amazingly they once again didn’t send the documentation that my flight was delayed. And again they mentioned the $42 without explaining what it was.
Well I guess the $150 travel credit was something, but it missed the point. What good is a $150 travel credit if it’s for an airline you don’t want to fly?
Nobody at United seems to understand that after a customer service meltdown that left me inconvenienced my goal isn’t to shake them down for miles or travel credits.
I was a First Class passenger. United’s customer service failed me during a delay.
I’m inevitably going to fly again. What I wanted wasn’t some travel certificate. I wanted assurances that if I’m ever in a similar delay that the experience I had will not be repeated. That required someone in customer service to engage with me on their failures, take accountability, and convince me that this failure is not common on United.
Instead they have shown through their own actions that this level of customer service is their standard operating procedure. Their customer service strategy is stonewall you until you give up. And if you bombard them with enough e-mails, maybe they’ll throw you the occasional travel credit. Like Kruger Industrial Smoothing they don’t care, and it shows.
I’m a realist. My home airport is a United Airlines hub. I’m not going to make declarations that I’m never flying United again. I probably will need to use them at some point in the future.
But after this case you can be assured that unless United’s flights offer a major advantage over its competitors in price and/or convenience, I’m taking my business elsewhere.
Still I tried again. I wrote back to the Department of Transportation. I noted that the response I received from United addressed none of the issues I raised. I also noted that they still had not sent me the required travel documentation.
I got this gem of a reply.
The United States Department of Transportation has forwarded your concerns to our office and we welcome the opportunity to address them.
We appreciate your follow-up to your original complaint filed with the Department of Transportation regarding your travel. I am sorry that you continue to be disappointed.
I understand and respect your point of view, however, our position has not changed. It’s our assertion that the root cause for the flight irregularity you experienced was due to weather. It may be helpful to know that all airlines are mandated by law to file our reports with accuracy and full disclosure. Moreover, it would not be in the best interest of our corporation in any way to intentionally misrepresent the situations of a flight irregularity as the consequences could have a financial impact on us through the fines that would be imposed, diminish our reputation and lose the trust of our customers. I have attached a copy of the flight record for you to view.
I am unsure what the digital payment that was issued to you was for, as I did not request the payment.
I am also very sorry that you were charged a baggage fee. You are correct, this was an error since you had a First Class ticket. We have refunded this charge and regret that this mistake was made in the first place.
I’m truly sorry to hear that your First Class experience didn’t meet your expectations. Our airport representatives do try and help our disrupted passengers with hotel and ground transportation options. We pride ourselves on delivering exceptional comfort across all service classes, and it’s disappointing that we fell short during your travel.
We ask for your understanding that our responsibility in Customer Care is to apologize for any disservice that took place, report to the appropriate management for future improvements in those areas, and provide relevant information about our policies and procedures. I appreciate you pointing out our shortcomings in service, as your feedback help us to identify and implement training and focus areas in which we can improve. Your overall satisfaction is extremely important to us, and we’re listening to our customers more than ever now to remain your airline of choice.
As a valued MileagePlus member, we appreciate your business and look forward to welcoming you on board your next United Airlines flight.
Emphasis added in bold by me.
United Airlines kept telling me that I had been sent $42. I wrote the Department of Transportation because they didn’t explain what this was. Their latest reply is that they don’t know what the $42 actually is for.
As far as everything else goes, it’s quite a read. They are telling me they couldn’t have possibly violated federal law because it wouldn’t make sense to do so. They would be subject to penalties.
Yes, opposed to the people who logically break the law because they won’t face penalties.
And we’re back to them framing this as a dispute over weather being the reason for the delay.
On top of this, they apologized for the baggage fee I was charged in “error.” Only that wasn’t the actual issue. Again, I was originally flying Economy. I paid the baggage fee as a result. After I paid the fee I upgraded and was due the refund. My issue was that they framed the refund as an act of generosity to compensate me for my inconvenience. Bang up job showing you’re thoughtfully responding to my complaints once again, United.
At least after the fourth request, they did finally provide me with the document I asked for confirming the delay in writing. I can finally complete my credit card claim to get reimbured for the Uber. So there’s that.
I haven’t made a final decision on my next step. I’m inclined to keep pushing the Department of Transportation. My hopes aren’t high for meaningful action, but there at least will be a public record of all this. Maybe if enough people with similar experiences report this, it will spur action. Maybe somebody will even be able to explain what the $42 is and how I can access it.
Thank you for listening to all that. It was cathartic. Hopefully you were amused. Maybe you got a laugh out of it. At the end of the day, even I have to chuckle a bit. An airline with customer service this bad is actually sort of funny. If it’s the worst thing that happens, you’re living a good life. Maybe some of you are even nodding along after having a similar experience.
That brings me to my main point.
I think United really doesn’t understand the value proposition of everything that just happened.
I don’t have status with United or anything, but I have given them a lot of business since December of 2024. The flight I mentioned was my eighth flight with them in that time, and the shortest were cross country trips between the East and West Coasts.
It would have taken very little to satisfy me. I didn’t even need points or a travel credit. I just wanted someone to hear me out and talk to me like a human. I wanted to know that United valued me as a customer, and that there were concrete reasons to make me believe that this was just a bad night for them, not a representation of their actual levels of customer service. Maybe it’s naive to think a big corporation like United would genuinely care about its customers in 2026, but I want to think they would.
During all of this, I started thinking back to one of the reasons I started giving United so much business to begin with. It was a similar situation. I was flying home from my brother’s house on West Coast after Christmas 2021. My flight got delayed seven hours. It was comedy of errors. There was bad weather on the East Coast, which delayed the arrival of my plane. We boarded late then had to get off the plane because of a mechanical issue. By the time United found a new plane, the crew’s shift had ended. So we had to wait for a new flight crew to arrive. This was also during a particularly big Covid wave so they were shorthanded.
Nothing was really United’s fault. Still when I checked my e-mail there was a proactive $150 credit for a future flight. A lot of friends and family said it was a lame gesture for a seven hour delay.
This also might be showing my naivety, but I appreciated it. I got the credit without needing to ask for it. Again it’s not like United was at fault for anything that happened. Still they made this gesture without me asking to show they appreciated my business and understood the inconvenience this had caused.
I’m sure a C Suite executive like Scott Kirby looks at that $150 credit and views it as an expense that cut down on his profits. But it wasn’t. It was actually an investment.
This is probably going to sound silly, but I always remembered that $150 gesture. As the years went by my travel levels started to increase. And when price and convenience were close, I generally chose to gave United my business. Maybe it wasn’t all because of that $150, but it stayed in my mind for five years as a reminder that United Airlines cares enough to do right by its customers. At the very least I would say that giving me $150 after Christmas 2021, helped netted United thousands of dollars of my business.
I didn’t even need a $150 travel credit this time. In fact, I eventually got just that and remain completely unsatisfied. Really all United needed to do was pay for customer service training that treated customers like they are valued instead of inconveniences.
Then again, it’s possible Scott Kirby meant to overhaul the customer service strategy one day but got sidetracked in his office with a good session yelling “K Uger!”
This whole saga also got me thinking about the Jets and the NFL Draft.
The 2026 NFL Draft is generally viewed as one of the weakest in recent memory. You can see it at the top. With all due respect to Arvell Reese and David Bailey, the options with the second pick seem a cut below the typical prospects selected there. That isn’t to say they are bad prospects. It also isn’t to say that these players are incapable of having successful careers. They just aren’t at the level of your normal number two pick.
And it continues through the rest of the NFL Draft. In a normal year your odds of hitting in the third round are pretty low, and it gets tougher the deeper you get into the Draft. In a year like this, the odds just get longer.
So it might seem logical to say the Jets should sell off their late round picks for whatever they can get. If these picks facilitate a trade up to guarantee a prospect of choice in the early rounds, it makes sense.
I feel like this might be misvaluing the picks the same way United misvalues its customer service, however.
Why do I say that? Well I decided to look back at what is widely considered the worst NFL Draft of the 21st century. That was the Draft of 2013. Go through the picks from that year, and it reads like a list of failure.
Still it is worth noting that there were success stories deeper into the Draft. 13 players picked in round 3 or later made at least one Pro Bowl during their respective careers, and 7 were named to at least one All Pro team.
I think there’s a broader mistake in undervaluing late round picks that teams and fans frequently make. The consensus view seems to be that since the picks have low odds of panning out that they should be traded.
The problem I see with this thinking is it treats the positive of hitting as equal with the negative of missing.
In reality teams need to find players in the third round and beyond. Because of the salary cap, the bulk of the players in the league are playing on small dollar deals. In order for a team to be successful, you need to find contributors who aren’t making much money. Of course the early rounds are fertile ground for that, but teams only start with a single first round pick and a single second round pick each year.
Of course the Jets are flush with early round picks in both 2026 and 2027. But they are also starting with a barren roster. Hitting on a high percentage of the four first round and four second round picks over the next two years is essential, but those alone probably won’t be enough to fix all of the problems with the team.
Given where the roster is starting, there probably isn’t a team with greater need of finding what few late round gems there are than the Jets.
In a year where there are likely to be fewer late round steals than normal, is the best course of action really to reduce your odds of finding them by trading the picks away?
One thing that I found notable about 2013 was even in a dismal overall year for talent in the Draft, two teams actually picked multiple Pro Bowlers in round three or later, Baltimore and Green Bay. The Ravens happened to have eight picks over the final five years after compiling three extra. The Packers one upped them with nine picks between the third and seventh rounds.
Drafting is an inexact science, and it becomes less exact the deeper we go. You’re going to miss more than you hit at that stage. Why not give yourself extra shots to find the rare success story?
Of course I’m not suggesting that no late round pick can ever be traded away. But on the whole teams should be looking to add more than they subtract. If you’re going to hit at this critical phase of the Draft, it helps to have as many resources as possible.
Even in a bad Draft, I don’t think these later round picks are worthless. In fact a team that invests in them can find genuine value.
After my experience, I am happy to report that the New York Jets are no longer the most inept business I have experienced operating locally. United Airlines has taken the belt.
Even Woody Johnson doesn’t lecture me about how the Jets couldn’t possibly fail because failure would be bad for business.
But I don’t want the Jets to be merely better than United. I want them to build a winning team. That requires valuing late round picks, even in a bad Draft. Draft classes are only bad for the teams that don’t find the few late round stars.
