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Taken February 2003 from Munich to San Francisco

US Airways suck! Never ever again!

Here's my story:

Last month I traveled with US Airways for the first time and I think at the same time it was also the last time.

I was supposed to go from Munich to Philadelphia, and then from Philadelphia to San Francisco. The first flight from Munich was two hours delayed, so I didn't catch the connecting flight to San Francisco. Then they booked me on a flight to Las Vegas and I was supposed to go from Vegas to San Francisco at midnight with America West. So I didn't feel very happy to call my family in California to tell them they'd have to pick me up from the airport at 1:20 in the morning!

So the flight to Vegas was delayed for more than two hours, again. I arrived in Vegas about five minutes to midnight, of course I missed my connecting flight, again. So they told me that there's no flight to San Francisco until the next morning. Then I called my family again, but they were already on the way to San Francisco airport. Halfway there they had to turn around.

So this lady gave me vouchers for a motel room and breakfast. Still, I didn't know what to do or where to go. It took me about half an hour to find the pick up place for the shuttle bus because this lady had more important things to do than to tell me where exactly to go!

So the next morning I flew to San Francisco with United Airlines and by no surprise my baggage wasn't there. I filed a report and this nice lady from United scanned my baggage claim tags and it turned out that the people in Philadelphia forgot to scan the tags on my suitcases. So all they could tell me was that they've lost my baggage but no one knew WHERE it was! They gave me a number that I could call to check if they've found my suitcases yet. I didn't even have a toothbrush with me! So I had to go shopping for some sweatpants and t-shirts. I know that after 72 hours the airline has to pay for the baggage. But what until then? Are people whose baggage got lost supposed to wear the same clothes for three days?

After two and a half days I finally got my suitcases with an apology note from UNITED AIRLINES!!! They didn't do anything wrong, they didn't lose my baggage and still I get an apology from them? I think something is drastically wrong here! I never got an apology from US Airways. My host mother called their customer service and they said, all they could do was give me a voucher for $100 that I could use on any US Airways flight within the next two years. Now, they made my supposedly 16 hours flight to a 4 days odyssey and I think that $100 don't even come close to an indemnity for all the trouble I went through.

I do understand that sometimes flights are delayed or that you miss flights. BUT: if something like that happens I, as a customer, firstly expect appropriate treatment and secondly I expect the airline to come up with at least some of the unplanned expenses I had.

Also on my way back to Munich on February 28 one flight got cancelled and I was sent to Pittsburgh, PA, which was not planned. All in all I had five flights with US Airways and one(!) of them was actually on time - the one from Philadelphia to Munich.