one of the surf participants and baggage issues. one of his bags was delayed and took plane after plane to get here. the airline said they would deliver it to campus once it arrived. i left my name as the contact person, along with my work address and phone number because i can explain better how to get to where on campus. 2 days later and still nothing. we called and called and called every number we could find for the airline and the airport but could only reach machines. we couldn't find a human representative of the airline to talk to. enough was enough--i had my friend who speaks spanish call the spanish-speaking line. it turns out that number is only for booking flights. they transferred her to the same automated numbers we had been trying. she was persistent though and eventually got through to a human. they told her the bag cannot be delivered and must be picked up. great... so i offered to take the student to the airport. that's what i did right after work. i lost 2 hours of personal time today, but at least it's "billable hours".

bottom line: don't trust united.