United Cares About [Insert Customer Name]

by Jessica Festa on




We don’t know whether to shake our heads in disappointment or fall off our chairs laughing about this letter “giantreesemar” from Flyertalk posted. Evidently, the flier sent a letter of complaint to United Airlines, and received this incomplete form in return.

The background story, according to giantreesmar, is he had set up a fairly complicated award itinerary, with United promising to hold it for three days. The traveler then made another change with a separate agent, who didn’t mention the hold time. Looking it up online, the traveler saw it would be held until midnight. At 5 p.m., however, giantreesmar checked on the reservation and found all of the segments deleted. Straightening everything took another hour on the phone and added frustration.

Apparently the situation was eventually resolved, and United tried to send a letter of apology. But it looks like they forgot a few key components.

Reached for comment, United spokesman Charles Hobart acknowledged the error:

“We mistakenly sent the customer an unfinished response letter. We’ve reached out to the customer to apologize for the inconvenience and address the customer’s concerns.”

Giantreesmar, didn’t seem too worried, quipping online, “I will really enjoy my (SPECIFIC ITEM).”

In fact, he later followed up on the thread with an update:

Just got a call from United HQ and spoke to a nice woman who was very apologetic and noted that it is indeed “embarrassing.” I was laughing, and really do hope I didn’t get anyone in too much trouble because I’ve made mistakes like this myself and would be terrifically mortified if someone posted it on flyertalk

Either way, she noted that this was supposed to be the letter that accompanies some form of compensation for my prior complaint email, not necessarily the only thing I’d receive on the matter (as I noted earlier, I did get an email in about 4 days that was sort of standard boilerplate apology, but my complaint didn’t really call for a specific action other than fixing their site). Somehow the letter went from generating the template to sending before the agent got to fill in the blanks. Whoops.

Either way, she did say that SPECIFIC ITEM is on the way (although I didn’t ask what it was). I think this whole thing is more funny than frustrating, so the suspense will have to dog me a bit longer!

Also to her credit, she did listen to me explain my issue with the bug on their site (she referred to them as the dot com department) that mis-displays how long reservations are “held” until. We’ll see if it actually gets fixed now!

We’re glad everything got straightened out in good spirits.

[Via One Mile At A Time]

Police Hunt For Lion In English Countryside (And Fail To Find One)

by Sean McLachlan on


A mysterious beast stalks the fields of Essex, England.

Over the weekend local police received calls from a number of eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen a lion in the fields near the village of St. Osyth. One person even snapped a predictably blurry and inconclusive picture of the beast. I’m not a wildlife expert but it looks like a house cat to me.

Police took the sightings seriously enough to scramble two helicopters and a team of officers and wildlife experts. They also checked with a local zoo and circus but neither reported a missing feline. After a long search they found … nothing.

A police spokesman said the sightings were probably due to “a large domestic cat or a wildcat,” the BBC reports. Police have called off the search and told people to enjoy themselves outdoors while remaining cautious. They should also have told them to stop overfeeding their pets with chips and kebabs and wasting police time.

This odd incident is actually part of a much bigger trend in the UK. Alien Big Cats, as they’re called, are giant felines not native to the area where they are spotted. Of course they’re never actually found. That would ruin the fun. We reported on one jaguar-like creature in Scotland three years ago and that’s just a drop in the Alien Big Cat bucket. The Big Cats in Britain research group has collected 240 different reports so far this year.

So why do Brits see lions and pumas in their fields while Americans get buzzed by UFOs? I guess it’s just one of those cultural differences we should all celebrate and not analyze too much. So next time you’re hiking in the UK, be sure to keep your camera out of focus. You might just start the next wave of Alien Big Cat sightings.

Don’t scoff too much, though. One woman said she was attacked by an Alien Big Cat. I’ve hiked a lot in England and Scotland and while I’ve never been attacked by an ABC (yes, that’s what they call them), I did nearly get attacked by cows.

[Photo courtesy Jennifer Barnard. As far as I know, this particular cat has never been the cause of a lion sighting]

Cart Driver Demonstrates An Unusual Way To Get Around The Airport

by Jessica Festa on




Well, here’s something you don’t see everyday. This video, taken by YouTube user GrimbleGromble1 at Chicago O’Hare International Airport in the United Terminal, shows an airport employee actually joking around with fliers. The vehicle warning sounds you hear are being made by the cart driver, who drove back and forth past travelers trying to get them to laugh. Watch at the end as the video gets a bit trippy, with the driver appearing to go through a tear in the space-time continuum.

On YouTube, the short clip got much feedback, with humorous comments like:

“You know money is tight when they can’t afford a real siren” – lemonjellies

“Bieber? Bieber? Bieber! Bieber! He’s probably a fan?” – jojacool

“At moment 0:13 you can actually see him breaking the sound barrier” – Longknife

“Job Description: License to drive electric airport terminal car. Ability to produce public awareness alarm by voice” – copperkipper1

According to user LenntBear, the cart drivers at O’Hare do this all the time.

What’s the funniest thing you’ve ever seen in an airport?

Gadling Blogger Snaps Photo Of Nessie (Not Really)

by Sean McLachlan on


On my recent trip to Scotland, I took this shocking photo of a strange creature out in the water. Is it Nessie?

Well, no, it isn’t. I won’t tell you what it is, except that the truth is hidden in one of the answers to the poll below. Vote for your most likely candidate and I’ll post the SHOCKING TRUTH ABOUT MY NESSIE PHOTO a week from now.

Sorry for shouting, I got carried away.

While I didn’t photograph the Loch Ness Monster (or did I?), a certain George Edwards did. The Inverness Courier published his photo last week and it’s been making the rounds on the Internet. It shows a fuzzy lump in the water that could be a species unknown to science or simply a fuzzy lump in the water.

Mr. Edwards says he saw the dark gray shape “slowly moving up the loch towards Urquhart Castle.” He watched it for at least five minutes but for some reason only took one photo. Edwards claims to have sent the image off to some experts in the U.S. military to have it analyzed.

Proof that Nessie exists? Maybe. Maybe not. The fact that Edwards runs Loch Ness Cruises makes me a wee bit suspicious that this is a publicity stunt. Even the popular monster hunting site Crypto Mundo cast some doubts on the story, asking why there’s no wake from a supposedly moving object and why a lifelong Nessie hunter only snapped a single photograph.

Whatever the truth behind Edwards’ photo, you’ll learn the SHOCKING TRUTH ABOUT MY NESSIE PHOTO next week.

Sorry, got carried away again.

UPDATE: The correct answer wins by a slim margin! Yes, this was a seal coming up for air. He’s poking his nose out of the water and looks remarkably like a shark, which is why 22 Gadling readers were fooled into thinking it was one. I’m a bit curious as to the six people who thought I swiped a “real” Nessie photo from the Internet. Are there so many blurry photos of the beastie out there that they all begin to look the same?

%Poll-76916%

Bureau Of Land Management Gives Advice On Finding Bigfoot

by Sean McLachlan on


Last week we reported on how the U.S. National Ocean Service publicly denied the existence of mermaids in response to a joke documentary on Animal Planet.

Meanwhile, another federal agency has taken a different course. The Bureau of Land Management in Oregon & Washington has released this video titled “Bigfoot and the BLM.” In it, people, who I assume to be BLM staff, are asked about their belief in Bigfoot and the narrator gives handy tips about where to go looking for the mysterious creature.

Is this all just a bit of silliness at taxpayer expense? A cheap publicity stunt? Maybe. Maybe not. As Matt Moneymaker, president of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Association pointed out on his Twitter account, “Hmmm…The locations mentioned by this BLM Oregon dude all happen to be active Bigfoot areas. . .coincidence??”

Perhaps the agency hopes that by encouraging people to visit the Pacific Northwest’s beautiful natural areas, some lucky hiker will find definitive proof for Bigfoot? Hopefully it will be better proof than a pot-bellied guy wandering around in a gorilla suit like shown in this video.

Whatever the explanation for the BLM’s move, they’re obviously fond of Bigfoot. Even the banner of their blog features the creature. Click on the jump to see the image.