Stuck in Denver.... 3 feet of snow

So Denver International is closed right now, and I am due to fly out on Friday at 10am to Washington DC to connect with VS22.

With many passengers stuck at Denver, there is a chance that I might not get away on my flight.

I have not been impacted by a flight delay or cancellation before. I'm not too worried about Denver to Washington, as I am sure they'll get me out as soon as they can.

However, what is the norm if I am in the position of missing the Virgin flight due to United and weather etc....

Some guidance from others would be helpful.

Regards

Mark

First, I'd call VS and see what they tell you. Then I'd call United and see what they tell you is their SOP when rebooking stranded pax. Right now *you* are not stranded; hopefully you won't be on Friday. Whatever the earliest time United tells you that can check in for your flight is, do it asap.

Then I'd be at United's counter anyway at least 4 hours before your flight - perhaps 6. That airport is a zoo in bad weather at the best of times; over a major holiday... Check in and tell them you are connecting to another flight. Once you are checked in they probably won't try to bump you! If they try anyway, it might be time to see if you can get '240'd' and go out on another carrier.

Only do this if you can get a confirmed seat on another carrier on a flight which has a good on-time record and will get you to your VS flight with plenty of time to spare. If you can't get at least 3 hours to connect, it might be dicey with deicing and waiting and security.

Hopefully others will be along with their views on this! The above is what I'd do. Others might have better suggestions, since driving your way to another airport and going out of it isn't an option in this case.

Put anything you must have in your cabin bag - there's a good chance some bags might not get transferred in time. (Hopefully not yours)

Good luck to you!

Are you booked on a complete interline itn, or did you book the two flights seperately by yourself? If you have one itn for the UA flight and another for the VS flight then UA doesn't have to honor your future travel on VS. They see it as you are flying from DEN to IAD and therefore have an obligation simply to get you to IAD, regardless of the time/date of your VS flight.

On the otherhand, if you purchased it as a complete ticket from a travel agent then UA is more likley to try and help you as they will know that you have interline travel with another carrier out of IAD.

I know when I worked for DL we would do our best to accomidate passengers traveling interline with another carrier, however if the interline segments are not in the same reservation then "technically" they don't exist in the eyes of the originating airline.

As suggested, I'd give UA a call and see what they say... and as a backup call VS to alert them of the situation. VS certainly isn't going to hold the flight for you if you get into IAD late, however if you call and talk to them they'll probably document your record of the events surrounding your situation which will make it easier for IAD staff to assist you in the event that you do miss it.

Also as suggested, if UA offers to "240" or "120" you to another carrier make sure you are being offered a confirmed seat on the other carrier. This time of year everything is overbooked, especially with the volume of people stuck in DEN. Once you accept being transfered, UA no longer has any liability to transport you, and if you get bumped you're left waiting until the next carrier can get you out.

When I log into my United Mileage Plus account, it does show my DEN to IAD and my IAD to LHR, so United are aware I have a connecting flight overseas. However, it is my experience, most airlines will try and shirk their legal responsibilities if they can. (I have never found this to be true of Virgin).

Thanks for your guidance.

What is "240" and "120" ?

Originally posted by webdes03
however if the interline segments are not in the same reservation then "technically" they don't exist in the eyes of the originating airline.

I realise that this is not the case in this situation, but from bitter experience with the low cost point to point carriers is that if you miss their flights due to a late incoming connecting flight they don't give a cr@p. You have to buy a new ticket, invariably an expensive one at that. You can add that to the list of the false economies of flying LCC's, and another reason why the likes of Michael O'Leary is making so much money, often out of the unfortunate circumstances of his customers.

Although LCC's are generally point to point, I wonder if LCC's would honour a missed connection in event that the delayed incoming and the outgoing flight were both theirs?

In my experience any *real* airline will accept the circumstances as valid reason for rescheduling you even on a restricted ticket.

Cheers, Howard (flight to DUS was cancelled this morning [:(!])

If you see 'tickets explained' on the left, it says rule 240 is a US specific rule that allows you to transfer to another carrier if your flight is cancelled, or something like that [:p]. I'm not sure what 120 is [?]

Originally posted by ukcobra
When I log into my United Mileage Plus account, it does show my DEN to IAD and my IAD to LHR, so United are aware I have a connecting flight overseas. However, it is my experience, most airlines will try and shirk their legal responsibilities if they can. (I have never found this to be true of Virgin).

Okay, that sounds like a single itinerary then. You should be okay for your onward sector to be sorted, though I don't know if the UA and VS computer systems "communicate" as well as, for example, UA to another *A carrier.

Right now, everything out of DEN to IAD on Friday is showing totally full.

One option, if there's a high chance you're not going to get out of Denver on time on Friday, is to have VS "back you up" on the next day's VS22 (i.e. bag you a seat) - I've had UA do this more than once for me (even on an upgraded itinerary) when I've had a threatened misconnect.

The most likely thing if you arrive at IAD on the same day, but too late to catch the VS flight, is that you find yourself offered a transfer to UA924 to LHR which leaves IAD at 21.47, if there's space available (currently showing Y full/overbooked, but open seats in business class).

One thing which UA can be pretty good at during periods of irregular ops is suddenly turning out large planes, like 747-400s instead of A320s or 757s, to help mop up the hoardes of people.

Good luck!
Mike

The news today indicates if you have a confirmed seat for Friday you should be OK, so I am keeping my fingers crossed.

For those interested, "120.20" and "240" don't mean the same from an airline business point of view, but from the customer's perspective they both mean you're being rebooked on another carrier.

Carriers and customer service agents will also refer to it as "invol(ing)" a customer. So if you hear an agent say, "We'll invol you..." or, "We'll have to invol the ticket", thats what it means. In the US, at least in my 3 years with Delta, 240 was generally used in an overbooking situation, such as "We're sorry sir, your Delta flight today is overbooked, but we can reaccomidate you on United flight 5252 instead." Whereas, 120.20 is generally used when a flight is cancelled due to MX, WX, Crew, etc.

You won't be told what it is, and it doesn't really matter, the 120.20 or 240 is how the agent will endorse your ticket for the other airline. The difference between the two is how your ticket handled by the second airline. In an instance of a 120.20, the originating airline pays the value of your new ticket. So if a Delta flight cancelled and we rebooked you on United, we would pay United the difference between the ticket. Basically UA would bill DL for the difference in fare. That is the originating airline buying you a confirmed seat on the other airline. In the case with a 240, airlines accept that flights become overbooked and it happens to all carriers, so if they accept you on a 240 they're accepting your ticket at it's face value/class of service it's booked in.

As a side note when you're invol'd you won't always get anything other than an itn. We sometimes would just print paper tickets if we were in a bind and have the customer take them to the other carrier, but the preferred method is simply to give the new carrier electronic control of your ticket. If you're receiving a paper ticket to take to the other carrier, it will be physically endorsed by the customer service agent, and my be accompanied by a FIM which is a form of a hand written ticket. FIM's are used if you have an extra segment added, such as you bought 2 segments (BOS-JFK-LGW), but we now have to send you on three to get you there (BOS-CVG-ATL-LGW). You have to have a ticket for each segment so the agent will hand write the third one for the new carrier. This can also be issued electronically if pushing the ticket to the other carrier in the form on an electronic online transfer.

Ok, that was a lot of info, but maybe someone will find it interesting...

My flight is cancelled, and I'm driving to Omaha (9hrs) to get a flight to Washington DCA and then a cab or transport to Dulles, to get my changed Virgin flight. Everyone, keep your fingers crossed for me.

By the way, United have cancelled my flight, but have done nothing to rebook me. I'm just paying the extra cost myself just to get home, and invoice my employer later.

Happy Christmas (I hope)

Best of luck to you Mark...

Originally posted by ukcobra
My flight is cancelled, and I'm driving to Omaha (9hrs) to get a flight to Washington DCA and then a cab or transport to Dulles, to get my changed Virgin flight. Everyone, keep your fingers crossed for me.

I'll do more than that! I'm putting in several requests with any deity listening that you arrive in Omaha any time soon!

I shuddered when I read your post - weather in all of the Midwest is horrid, and many roads are closed. Your 9 hour trip to Omaha might turn into a lengthy marathon. That's why I mentioned in my original post that driving was not an option in your case. Many of the roads out of Denver were impassable early Thursday. Now you can get out, but you can't get into other cities, according to the latest news! Let's hope the newscasters are just talking up the bad for ratings.

Good luck, I'm hoping you have an uneventful drive, on-time flights, and eventually a Happy Christmas. I'm also hoping you can post back sometime today so we know if you actually made it.

Learned a lot in this thread ... but most of all GOOD LUCK Mark, hope to hear you made it!

So it's 3:45am and I'm about to head to Omaha Airport, the 9 hour drive was uneveentful, although the first 3 hours outside of Denver were on pretty treacherous roads. My colleagues flights to Chicago were canceled last night. Heres hoping everything else is going to go ok today.
More updates from when I get to DC.

9hrs[:0]

Glad you made it alright and have a good flight to DCA now you're there;)

VS.

Yay - glad you made it through!

From here on out all clear sailing, I hope. Looking forward to an update from IAD![y]

Thank you to the deity Who listened [oo]

[mcmbenjamin]

Crap. Wish I read this earlier. Would have been happy to have gave you a ride. PM'ed you my cell.

So here I am sitting in the lounge in the care of Virgin Atlantic. The Midwest flight was pretty good, nice wide leather seats and my bags came off very quickly.
A colleague suggested that I rent an Avis car, leave my luggage in it, shop and then pick it up. What a great idea, I left the Avis car with all my belongings in the Avis compound while I used the Metro to go to the Pentagon City Mall, which was very quiet for a Saturday before Christmas. I wandered around, had lunch and realised I had planned to go to the National Space and Air Museum near IAD.
Drove over there, had a good look round, though the French Concorde was looking a bit tired and in need of some TLC, went up to the Tower and saw some planes come into IAD, headed to the airport and checked in at 3pm.

Thanks for the offer of a ride, we had 5 employees making the run from Denver in 2 cars, if my wife knew what the roads were like, she would have told me to stay. Incidentally, my Pontiac Grand Prix handled really well in the snow. My colleague from the UK had a confirmed seat on Fridays BA flight from Denver at 7pm and that was cancelled too, when he got to Omaha, his United flight to Chicago was cancelled, so they rented another car and drove on.

For what it's worth, I could never get through to United to find out what they could do to help me, they sent me an email saying my flight was cancelled and they *may* have re-booked me !

Many people drove to Omaha it turns out, I called the US Gold FC line and was rebooked onto today's flight without any fuss.

Future flights will not be with United, they failed to let me know how they could help me get home.

Thanks for everyone's concerns, I'll be posting a TR when I get home.

Happy Christmas to you all.

Mark

P.S First time in the IAD lounge and it's quite nice, although the Champagne, is not champagne, the waitress showed me the bottle and gave me a wink !

[honey lamb]

Glad you made it through to IAD. The Clubhouse manager is a delightful lady originally from Northern Ireland. She is small, probably in her late 40s with reddish hair and will really look after you.

Hope the rest of the journey is uneventful

Errr, we are on first name terms, as she thanked me for fixing the PCs, and I gave in, following the suggestion to upgrade, I feel I need a good night's sleep to allow me to enjoy Christmas with my wife, children and family.

The Concierge is loking into it right now.

I am likely to put up with United to Denver, to continue to be this well looked after by Virgin.

Mark

[honey lamb]

And if you continue to travel through IAD she will continue to look after you in the Clubhouse [^]

[mcmbenjamin]

Originally posted by honey lamb
And if you continue to travel through IAD she will continue to look after you in the Clubhouse [^]

She ROCKS! I may drop off some cookies for her on Friday.

A great tale and result - to all who are travelling to be home, or be with loved ones, I hope your journeys are not quite so epic, but the result is the same.

Happy Christmas.