In early September, I booked my flights back to the States for Christmas. Using some credits from a previous flight, I was able to get a very reasonably priced flight from Heathrow to Harrisburg via Dulles, returning on the same route. All looked promising...
The afternoon before my scheduled departure, my dad sent me an email asking if I’d seen the weather forecast for the east coast, and asking if I could rebook my flight to avoid the snow. I looked online and saw that due to a forecast of 1-2’ of snow falling the day of my scheduled travel, United had waived all change fees for potentially impacted flights, encouraging passengers to pick other routes or to change travel to other dates. I called United to see whether I could reroute through Chicago or postpone travel by a day. The representative with whom I spoke said the first flight she could get me onto would be Christmas Day (a full six days after the originally scheduled flight) and to Chicago, rather than to DC. Needless to say, I decided to risk it with the existing reservation.
After getting home that evening, I looked online and found that there were no particularly cheap last minute alternatives, if my original flight would be cancelled. The least expensive option was a Continental flight a day later, via Hamburg to Newark. I purchased this ticket as a “just-in-case” option, knowing I could cancel it and get a full refund for the first 24 hours if the original flight was cancelled.
On Saturday, I got a text from United stating that my original flight was delayed from 4:45pm Saturday until 8am Sunday. I saw this as a good sign: the plane must be in London already, and it would be going back to the States eventually, with me on it, albeit delayed slightly. Given that, I cancelled the Continental ticket that I’d purchased online.
Shortly after cancelling the Continental ticket, I got another text from United: My flight to Dulles was cancelled. At this point, I couldn’t even get through the phone systems at United to be placed on hold – the voice response system broke before it got that far.
I ended up finding that the least expensive option that would maximize my time back in the States was to buy a completely new ticket to JFK on Aer Lingus. After confirming there were no other less expensive options than this, I decided to go for it and just entirely replace my original United ticket.
My dad was great and drove the three hours to meet me at JFK, rather than having me transferinto midtown and then to a train down to Harrisburg, probably taking at least two hours off of what my ground-based travel time would have been in the States!
On the way back to London, I took the train, which gave me a chance to meet a few friends for brunch in New York before the flight back to London.
So, all in all, I lost just one day at home because of the flight cancellation, but also got to see a few more friends while home, whom I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.
One bright spot out of all of this was the refund process from United: I called their US-based customer service line while waiting to board the Aer Lingus flight in Heathrow at about 4am ET / 9am LN. After only a few minutes on hold, I had my most productive call ever with a reservations agent:
Agent: Good morning, Mr. Renshaw.
Me: Morning. As you can see, I was booked on a flight LHR-IAD yesterday that was cancelled. I’ve booked alternative arrangements with another airline and would just like a refund. What do I need to…
Agent: Done.
Me: Done?
Agent: Yes, I just refunded your full ticket. It’ll hit the credit card you originally used, within a few weeks.
Me: Uh… okay, wow, thanks!
