Travel woes and the craziness of US airlines

So ... I'm stuck in Minneapolis because of the snow in New York (where I'd much rather be than this city with apologies to MNers!) ... booked onto Continental who didn't mail me, text me or otherwise that they cancelled my flight from MSP to EWR today ... then tried to book on NWA. Hey, if you're a non-US citizen you can't book on their Web site because it won't let you pay with a non-US address, so I call them ... same thing! What goes, do they really only ever have US citizens in the US booking flights? Well, a colleague paid so that sorted and supposedly OK for a 517pm departure. Now the NWA flights are cancelled so shunted back to tomorrow, and down to coach from first because of course all the flights are full ... so I've cancelled three customer meetings tomorrow and an end of year review with my boss. Can't wait to get out ... and back to the UK ... guess I've never really faced the hassle of these weather issues in the US before.

[preiffer]

Remember slinky, to some US companies, the world STILL ends at the east and west coasts. 'Europe' is 'somewhere over there'.... [:p]

Hope you get things sorted eventually. I've suffered weather delays over there before, and the system the domestic carriers use for standby and upgrade 'chits' really don't help when the weather gets bad. [:0]

Could be worse, I have a colleague in SFO, her first flight was cancelled due to the storm,she is flying to Boston.
She's now been on two planes at SFO, both of them have gone Tech.

The Airline is United.

I booked a flight from SFO-LAS whilst in San Francisco without problem. Just rang an airline up, hit zero a lot to speak to someone (annoying automated system otherwise that won't help you) and booked the flight. Had to pay using my UK credit card when I got to the check-in desk.

Had the same problem with the internet before phoning too. Did try sites like Expedia but they require 24 hours notice and time zone differences don't count towards that.

After this experience I have no desire whatsover, ever to fly Northwest again. Having been cancelled, rebooked on to a then further delayed flight, downgraded from first to coach without any comment, offered a $25 dollar voucher off my next flight as compensation, treated like dirt by desk agent, worse than that by the cabin crew (e.g. on being offered a club soda for my $850 one way ticket MSP-JFK when I asked could I finish the whole can, the look of disdain on the CC face!) ... just about the worst airline I've ever come across on this experience.

But, at least I had a VS flight in UC to look forward to at JFK and now back in the UK, yippee!