United Airlines delay compensation

Official routes

• Delay or customer-commitment policy

  Reviewed 2026-10-05. Meal threshold in this stored review: more than 3 hours.

• Expense or reimbursement request

  Care expenses are reviewed separately from an unused-ticket refund.

• Unused-ticket or refund path

  Completed travel is not an unused-ticket refund. Check any existing request first.

How to request this

1. Record original scheduled arrival, any revised schedule, and actual final arrival with time zones. Flight-status screenshots do not prove cause.
2. Choose one remedy at a time: unused ticket, documented care expenses, discretionary goodwill, or a written cause explanation.
3. United’s reviewed commitment uses a meal voucher after more than three hours on a United-controlled disruption. Declining offered care can exclude independently purchased care from reimbursement.
4. Preserve whether care was offered, accepted, declined, or unavailable. Several carriers exclude independently purchased care when a voucher was declined.
5. Do not treat time lost or an hourly wage as a guaranteed cash payment. US delay rules do not create EU261-style delay compensation.

What the source review actually said

• United-controlled disruption: meal voucher after more than three hours; overnight partner hotel away from home and conditional hotel transportation.
• Reasonable self-paid hotel review requires no partner room. Declining offered care excludes reimbursement for independently purchased care; meal vouchers do not guarantee cash reimbursement.

Questions

Sources

• Carrier delay policy — reviewed 2026-10-05
• Carrier expense route — reviewed 2026-10-05
• Carrier refund route — reviewed 2026-10-05
• DOT Fly Rights — reviewed 2026-10-05