Today has been a traveling nightmare.
My eldest son & I were scheduled to fly 8:30am LAX to SFO to catch 11am SFO to HND (Tokyo) flight.
Both flights booked w/ANA Miles on UAL metal.
The connection was approved by airline when schedule was made.
At gate they offerred $400 each to take a later flight...I should have worked that & see if I could get the next day.
Probably not but should have...
So, we sit at the gate in the plane for 30 minutes while Captain states that due to no slots at SFO we'll go park at west end of LAX.
UAL is at terminal 8 which is right next to the southern runways.
We taxi all the way west & shut down engines & wait 1H.
Then start up & taxi east towards northern runways. That's almost 5 miles of taxing...
Flight departs after it was suppose to land.
Lands 90 minutes late. Connection is lost.
Herein where it gets ridiculous.
While sitting at west end of LAX I spoke w/UAL Supervisor in Manila & they said nothing can be done.
It's an ANA issue. I called ANA & they said that since UAL is operator & it's day of travel it's on them.
1H on phone w/UAL & nothing.
Up in SFO another 90 minutes on phone w/UAL & the other phone with ANA while waiting in line at UAL Customer Service.
Of course they can find 2 seats SFO to LAX but surprisingly they can find 2 seats for next day (WED 6/28) for 1:20am LAX to HND.
And 2 more for HND to UBJ 2 hours later.
So what's the problem?
UAL can't ticket because itinerary is locked by ANA since it's their miles & they issued tix.
Finally ANA realizes they have to "off load" the ticket since they ticketed it.
Once off loaded it can be reticketed by UAL.
BUT, they have to wait for Haneda airport to open at 5:30am local time & send them a message to do it.
Because ANA USA doesn't have same system that can off load the ticket.
Now at LAX I have to wait for ANA ticketing to open to get boarding passes.
They open 3H before departure which means 10:30pm PT they'll open.
We also don't know where checked-bag from LAX to UBJ is.
I'm happy w/going on ANA rather than UAL for better food, experience, etc.
I'm also much happier with red-eye night flight rather than 11am PT departure so I can sleep.
But, we lost 14H of vacation & most importantly this whole thing was handled so poorly.
UAL said that ANA wasn't doing what they need to.
I had to facilitate & broker the deal between them.
I had CSR's from both airlines on 2 different iPhone's on speaker phone so they could figure it out.
It's their business to fix it, not mine.
I don't think there's any compensation or should I write a pithy letter to UAL and/or ANA about this?
Thx everyone!
PS I have that silly Priority Pass Lounge card but they close at LAX at 8pm at international termina! Why so early!
PPS I know someone is going to say "...well, you got a free SFO to LAX flight anyhow..."
There, I said it before you!
Safe travels everyone!
