I'm pretty happy that United Breaks Guitars has been seen over 2 million times. I'm really starting to feel that United Airliens deserves to be the brunt of joke and scorn. We've had issues with them in the past. Most recently I requested a refund through their website. I only had my e-ticket number and that's all the web form needed. The date of the flight was fast approaching and I hadn't heard back from them, so I called. They didn't have any record of our request on file but they did tell me that my ticket was non-refundable. I ended up going for a credit instead.
A couple days later we finally heard back from United regarding the original refund request we did online (even though the agent we called had "no record" of this request, it did actually exist). Michelle and I read it at different times and both remarked that the tone of the email seemed defensive.
Dear Valued Customer: We have received your request. I can appreciate your situation and would like to clarify United's position. Our non-refundable policies are very specific. Non-refundable tickets can be applied...
In the same amount of words they could have just said "sorry, it looks like the ticket associated with your e-ticket number is non-refundable. We can instead offer...".