A family of 5 say they spent $4,000 and 2 days traveling home to North Carolina from Nigeria after a booking issue with United and Lufthansa left them without tickets

23.08.2023 - 01:23 / insider.com

Andrew Spector, Onyi Iweala, and their three children hoped a lost bag on their journey from Durham, North Carolina, to Abuja, Nigeria, would be the biggest travel hiccup of their 10-day trip to visit family.

But when the family of five arrived at the Abuja airport on the day of their flight home, they discovered they didn't have tickets — despite having a receipt for them.

Spector said his family spent $4,000 and two days, and took three flights, to make it home.

Spector purchased five tickets in mid-March from United Airlines for $10,181, according to receipts viewed by Insider. The family was scheduled to fly out of Abuja on United's partner airline Lufthansa in August.

The itinerary would take them from Abuja to Frankfurt, Germany. For this long-haul flight, the family spent $3,450 to upgrade their seats to business class.

From Frankfurt, they planned to board a United plane to Chicago, Illinois. For this flight, the family upgraded to premium economy for $1,375. 

Once in Chicago, the family would head home to Durham, North Carolina, again flying with United.

On July 1, Spector received an email (viewed by Insider) that outlined a schedule change. He said he noticed that the flight from Abuja to Frankfurt had disappeared from their itinerary, so he logged onto his Lufthansa account. Here, he said it showed his confirmed reservation and the upgraded business-class seats. He thought the family was all set. 

A few days before their flight out of Abuja on August 11, Spector said he called United as he was worried his family wouldn't make their scheduled connection due to delays caused by airlines rerouting as a result of a military coup in Niger. Spector said he wanted to see if he could move the Lufthansa flight to an earlier time.

Spector said a United customer-service representative told him that they couldn't change his flights without charging a fee. In a statement sent to Insider, a United representative confirmed that the family reached out to the airline a few days prior to their flight. 

Spector kept his family's scheduled flights and said if they missed their connection from Frankfurt to Chicago due to delays, he figured United would be responsible for finding them another flight home.

When the Spectors arrived at the check-in desk at the Abuja airport on August 11, a Lufthansa agent told them United hadn't provided a ticket number to Lufthansa, so the airline couldn't issue the family tickets.

"The ticket agent says, 'Well, the problem is you don't have a ticket,'" Spector said.

Spector said he was confused and shocked. "We booked these flights in March," he said. "We have seats, I have a reservation number, I have a receipt."

According to the Lufthansa desk, there wasn't anything the