Horrible People and *******

A few months ago, my mom and I flew to South Africa to visit family on South African Airways, a partner of United. We booked and paid through United and spent about $12,000 total. The flight there was fine. On our way back, while waiting in the airport, we found out that our flight was cancelled due to bad east coast weather. It took us hours to get out of the terminal with no assistance from SAA personnel. By the time we got to the ticketing booth, we were told that the flight for the next day was full, but we had a confirmed seat on the flight the day after that. They put us up in a hotel but would only pay for one night, so we had to pay an extra $1000 out of pocket. We returned to the airport two days later. We had been in South Africa for about a month, and we wanted to get home. The lady at the check-in counter checked us in, told us we were in first class, and gave us our boarding passes. Out seats were 7A and 7B, first class seats. We got to the gate to board our plane, and as they scan our ticket they tell us to step aside because there was a problem. At this point, we had waited 3 days to get on this flight, and they were not letting us on. As it turns out, the flight the day before had been cancelled also, and our seats were given to people who were on that flight instead of making them wait as were forced to. We had our tickets and seats assignments, but it did not matter to them. They gave up our seats. We were told that we could either fly coach or wait until we could get another first-class ticket which could be days (and, as we learned from this experience, would not be guaranteed.) This was a 16-hour flight, I am very tall, and we were not prepared to be flying coach. Neither of us had pillows, water, or food, but we got on the plane after we were assured that we would be seated together. We, of course, were not seated together. Because our flights were originally cancelled, we had to cancel our connecting flights through united, which we cannot get a refund for, and we had to pay for new flights. All of this amounted to a loss of $4000 as well as the $6000 from the first-class ticket. We contacted United and South African Airways right away and were told that a request to refund the $6000 would take a few weeks. So, we waited and called weekly. We would be happy with the difference between the first-class tickets we purchased and the coach ticket we were forced to use. Today we found out that United and SAA denied our refund request and we will be getting no money back from them. I have been travelling my entire life since I have family all over the world and I have never experienced anything this traumatic while traveling, and it does not seem fair to not even receive the money that we are owed.