What hasn’t already been said about the airline meltdown this week, which many have said reminded them of the Southwest meltdown last December? And somehow, we are suspicious that we haven’t seen the last of airline meltdowns this year. That given a myriad of circumstances that have Hawaii travelers’ nerves on edge, including ours.
$300 (30,000 bonus points) for those caught in the fracas.
We heard from many of you who either were unable to get to Hawaii this week or who were unable to get home. We saw many flights to and from Hawaii on United Airlines were canceled this week. The route we’re about to travel between Denver and Lihue was canceled on multiple days, which definitely caught our attention personally.
And, of course, it made the global news and social media too. But today, United raised the bar on credit for disturbances with their latest offer. If you were impacted this week, you might have already received an email from United with an apology and 30,000 MileagePlus bonus miles per passenger. That means a family of four would receive 120,000 miles. The problem is that if you’ve spent two or more days trying to reach your destination, the extra costs would be many times more.
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Here’s where our thoughts again go to dreaded trip insurance.
We hate buying trip insurance, and you may too. But, we love when we need it, and we have it. The costs of trip insurance have gone up substantially, and we now are averaging 15% of the covered amount or more. On the other hand, with exposure like this week with United or previously with Southwest, it isn’t any wonder why it is getting more costly.
Southwest previously gave 25,000 miles to those impacted by their meltdown.
So this offer from United may set the bar higher for what we can expect from airlines when we are seriously inconvenienced. But is that enough? We’d say that it is definitely not.
A model of how it works on flights to and from the UK and Europe is fascinating.
We were on a flight bound from Gatwick to JFK a few years ago. Due to unknown reasons, the flight was delayed some four hours. What happened next was a big surprise. We received a credit card refund from the airline for $600/passenger—that is courtesy of a UK rule that provides up to $600 for delays over three hours, depending on the distance.
The EU adopted a similar ruling on flights both from the US to Europe and in the other directions that provide up to 600 euros for long-distance flights delayed three hours or more.
Needless to say, social media went nuts this week with the United problems.
@clairekgroves Someone help me get home please. This is insane @United Airlines #unitedairlines #unitedairlinestiktok #unitedairline #flightdelayed #airportdiaries #airportproblems #bffspod #airportnightmare #sleepingattheairport #airportcheck #airportproblems #airporthorrorstory #goodbyeunitedairlines #airporthorrorstory #stuckattheairport #viraltiktok #travellife #traveltiktok #newarkairport #newarkairportdelay #newarkairportnj #trending #tcu #collegegirlsgonewild #clairegroves #clairekgroves
♬ Creepy and simple horror background music(1070744) – howlingindicator
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Would the 30k miles get you a seat on the private jet that United’s CEO took from EWR-DEN after he was stranded?
Would I trade my life for the life of the CEO of Any airline? No way … just no way!
Luckily we flew out on AA Thursday night from LIH to CMH via PHX in blissful ignorance.
Landed in Columbus with about 24 hours to spare before the gates opened to the Taylor Swift concert tonight in Cincy my teenage daughter was going to. If she knew flights back were getting delayed for days, the stress level would have been off the charts. 🙂
We live on the east coast and traveling to and from Kauai is harder for us than traveling to France. Not only were all of our flights changed several times between booking and the trip. Yesterday Hawaiian Airlines text us at 1:00 AM saying their first flight #10 to LAX was canceled from Honolulu. I immediately called and we were rebooked on Delta flights. We had to continue with our 6:15 AM flight from Kauai to Honolulu on Hawiian because everything later was booked. In Kauai the car rental doesn’t open for returns until 5:15 AM. People were lined up to return their cars. If we didn’t have Global Entry we probably would not have made our flight. Check in for Hawiian air was slow and stressful. Not enough help and a lot of switching of computers. The help looked frustrated also. We ended up with a very long layover in Honolulu since the first flight they could get us on was Delta’s 12:30 PM flight to LAX arriving at 9:30 PM. From there we had another long layover in Los Angeles and we took the 1:05 AM Delta flight to Atlanta, and then a short flight from Atlanta to North Carolina, getting us home 24 hours after we started. If I was doing this again I would look into Southwest. They seemed to have the best morning flight times to the mainland with connections. Although Delta did very well getting us to and from on time yesterday and this morning.
Hi Andie.
Thanks for letting us know. We get it, after having similar experiences to and from the eastern US already this summer. And we’re heading out for more of the same with fingers crossed and hopefully a good amount of patience. We will surely be reporting.
Aloha.
What’s the best flight insurance company?
I had fight insurance on a flight just as covid started. The event was shut down and flights were being canceled along with city’s locking down. I could not get the insurance company to pay.
Hi Jay.
Not sure there is a best. It is highly variable. You can just search online or try a trip insurance agency like insuremytrip.com that sells many different products. We wouldn’t suggest buying from an airline, and as others have pointed out, check to see what coverage your credit cards might offer.
Aloha.
Aloha,
Mahalo for always keeping us so well informed. I have been relying on you for years. What is your opinion about relying on a travel credit card with built in insurance benefits. Would you still recommend getting travel insurance as well?
Hi Carol.
Thank you! The devil is in the details. That’s true whether it is credit card coverage or trip insurance itself. We’d suggest reading the coverage details of both and then taking your best spot. Please let us know what you decide.
Aloha.
SWA did give out 25,000 pt BUT they also reimbursed for expenses related to delays and alternate means of travel. I ended up booking 2 tickets on AA to get home and they reimbursed me for that! I doubt UA will do that.