She Boarded a Plane to See Her Dying Mother. Then Her Ticket Was Canceled.<br />When Ms. Amrich pleaded, saying her mother was dying, the agent responded that her ticket had been refunded and that “nobody flies for free.”<br />Back in the airport, Ms. Amrich called Ms. Prelas, sobbing.<br />It was around 2:30 p.m., and Ms. Prelas immediately called United and had Ms. Amrich switched onto Flight UA5712, leaving Colorado Springs at 5:15 p.m.<br />That flight would go to Denver, where Ms. Amrich would make a connection to Minneapolis.<br />But Ms. Amrich and her landlord, Ines Prelas, said they had heard nothing from the agency before she was removed from the plane.<br />Ms. Prelas said she was given no explanation at the time, but United told The Times<br />that the plane had already left by the time Ms. Prelas made that offer<br />Traveler Help Desk, the online agency that sold the ticket, had rescinded it<br />because the landlord made a change directly through United — even though United had assured the landlord that it was not a problem to do so.<br />The agent, she said, responded that Ms. Amrich could not get back on the plane.<br />She said that the intention had been to protect Ms. Amrich against possible fraud and<br />that a representative had tried “numerous times” to contact Ms. Amrich first.<br />“I cried the whole way from Pueblo,” Ms. Amrich said in a phone interview on Jan. 18, two days after her mother died.
