Our United Airlines Dallas-Chicago flight was delayed due to weather conditions. We arrived at Alitalia check-in 30 minutes before departure but they had closed the door of the plane (they said) and there would not be another flight until the same time the next day.
We asked if they could book us on a different airline but check-in counter attendants refused because it was a weather related delay. We asked about our bags since it looked like we were spending the night in Chicago but they said we could not pick them up until flight time the next day. Not easily discouraged, we went to a United desk where they assured us that they could get us on one of their flights in two hours and printed out boarding passes.
The only problem was locating our bags. United called the Alitalia desk to see if we could pick-up our bags and they said not only could we not pick up our bags but they would not endorse our tickets to United so we would be forced to wait in Chicago for the next Alitalia flight to Rome in 24 hours. After spending the night in Chicago at our own expense, we showed up at the Alitalia flight 3 hours early for check-in. They could not locate our bags.
My first thought was "did they go on to Rome?" but they assured me that was impossible and that United must have lost our bags. I checked again with United who assured me the bags had been turned over to Alitalia. When we finally arrived in Rome, our bags were setting in the storage area where they had been for 24 hours. Our return trip was another fiasco.
Our flight was 3 1/2 hrs late leaving Rome due to mechanical issues. We were connecting at JFK on an American Airlines flight and had a 5 hour layover but we could not get through immigration and customs in time to catch it since we were 4 hours late. Alitalia once again refused to help us because we were not continuing on an Alitalia flight (our ticket had, however, been issued all together in one document by American Airlines and Alitalia does not service Dallas). American Airlines was happy to put us on another flight--unfortunately the only one that night was leaving out of LaGuardia so we caught a cab across town. Alitalia was the most uncooperative airline I have ever flown domestically or internationally. It was not certainly not worth the $100 I saved.