United Airlines

Although almost all airlines using the logo "star alliance" which in general means "passing on the passengers from one plane to another" while sharing the profits by offering congested flights and not so much services, don't get me wrong although the meaning of the word means "union" but is a concept used by airline's management in "profit" unionization, while the meaning of the word "passenger" which pays for these airlines to operate has no meaning.

The plane from Los Angeles to Newark was ok form there to Brussels started showing the problem, we had reserved our seats 20 days before the flight, still they had placed my wife in one side of the plane and me in another, that's when we realized that although we have paid lots of money for our flight they already have managed to show their bad service, here, the food and the plane being dirty is left out because is not worth the discussion.

While in Newark United Airlines plane bound for Brussels being filled with European passengers who were visiting either New York or New Jersey and I think originally flew with Brussels airline which is yet another cheap airline in Europe.

United airlines is Allied with Brussels airlines which we had to fly from Brussels to London and with United airline back to Los Angeles, while boarding the planes we could see people boarding have large to very large luggage or bags as their carry-on with no problems, while passing a stewards almost to my last steps to the plane I was asked to leave my carry-on bag, a small luggage with the size and legal weight internationally recognized and allowed to board any plane which in many years I have internationally travelled and this was the first time ever someone wanted it to be checked in, I responded to the "Demand" by the stewards that: I have my medication which I need to take while traveling another 11 hours to Los Angeles from London, yet the stewards insisting that: "The flight is full and I have to check in my legal carry on", at that moment I thought she didn't heard me say that: my medication is in my carry on so I repeated the words, but she ignored my saying while another employee took the bag.

While inside the plane I complained to head stewards and repeated my saying about my medication, later showed her the compartment above our seats having a place so is under our seats having plenty of space, she answered me that: "she will look into it", before taking off she returned with a answer that was not surprising and offered us two cups of coffee for inconvenience and saying that: she will write a report about it?

By then I needed to know that I have to be without my medication for next 11 hours flight home and wait and see what happens.

By landing at Los Angeles and getting our luggage I realized that my luggage is damaged so is my medication box and pills that I needed to take are all over my carry on bag and some of them are damaged which points at handling the bag with care?

What I recommend here is to consider and study airlines and agencies you buy your tickets from, if it shows less than 4 stars is not good agency or the airline's, one more thing, the most agencies are there to sale tickets and take their percentage whatever it may be, let me give you an example, we booked a room for our stay in Luxembourg with booking.com asking for a room including breakfast and parking, we got a room alright but not a garage nor breakfast and paid the full price to learn not to book with booking.com ever.

Find the hotel of your choice and contact them directly, you will get better deal and a better room, so it goes with airlines, if they don't have 4 stars it means that there's no star in their star alliance.

So I'm trying to book an UBER from home to Newark Airport (the horror of Newark AP is bad enough!) but UBER not surprisingly asks for the departure Terminal. Trying to find that on the UNITED website or phone app is an exercise in futility. Ah, but don't worry UNITED has junked up the website and App with so much BS it's near impossible to even find your flight info!

The staff isn't good. They aren't courteous. Not enough leg space for long journeys. Overall i would not recommend this airlines and I hate to travel again.

In general, UNITED has delivered consistent above average service until a recent experience (early April 2018) using the airlines for a company business trip:

1) TSA precheck. I had no issues, but my co-worker with identical TSA precheck demographics -- we both gave KTN to our company travel service - could not get precheck. We had both paid for it months ago. He was told at terminal by UNITED staff that they could see his KTN, but he was "not selected" to receive precheck -- even though it was a prepaid service! So, be warned of inconsistencies! I'm always paranoid of electronic glitches so I actually went on the web site days in advance to verify my precheck status and found initially it was NOT linked to my ticket until I attached my frequent traveler # -- which was provided to travel agent in advance.

2) DELAY in connection - failure to communicate. I arrived at gate thinking I had 20 mins before boarding... NO overhead announcement... NO change in boarding or take-off time posted at gate... NO web site announcement on my UNITED app... NO email push notification. End result: boarding 30 mins late, Take off 1 hr late. Arriving plane for my flight was late -- overhead staff talking. TOO BAD staff knew & passengers did not. The hour delay resulted in loss of chance to register & participate in work activities later that evening (only 10 min ride to hotel, so I would have had 45-50 mins if on time).

Lessons: be very compulsive about TSA precheck if you fly this airlines, or they might randomly choose not to give you the service you had PAID for in advance. Be pro-active about inquiring about delays because you might get NO notification whatsover - email, text, overhead, or gate!

We recently took a trip to New Zealand and booked our flight on United Airlines. We flew from Dayton to Chicago to LAX to Auckland. Thankfully they chartered Air New Zealand for the LAX to Auckland flight. However, we were stuck in a 'retro' 777 on our trip back from Auckland to San Francisco. Yikes. The plane was packed as well making our flight even more painful as could not stretch. The seats COULD NOT have been more painful.

On February 9th, 2018 I was scheduled to depart from Pittsburgh International Airport at 10:48AM (UA flight 590) and was scheduled to land at 11:30AM at Chicago OHare International Airport. As I was doing my standard check -In at the kiosk machine I encountered an issue when obtaining my boarding pass.
For some reason, I was no longer allowed to bring a small purse and a very-small gym bag (which weighed less than 2Ibs) as a carry on. Assuming that there had been some error with the machine I had kindly asked for a representative to help me with obtaining my boarding pass. Without even looking at my items she told me that I would have to pay for the gym bag and check it in with a fee of 25$.
I kindly obliged but was in complete shock that you would have people pay 25$ for a carry on item that: 1) fit in the required parameter to be a carry on 2) should be allowed as a second carry on as a whole since I only had a small purse 3) the flight was not fully booked and there was plenty of space ON the aircraft for the item.
If you could kindly reimburse the 25$ that would be greatly appreciated since this fee was completely unmerited and unnecessary. Please feel free to contact me at your convenience.

Bagge prices suck