Dear diary: United sucked today

Had a flight from Richmond to San Diego today connecting through IAD in D.C. I'm only here for 24hish before taking a red eye back tomorrow night.

Received an alert this AM that my flight was delayed ~3hrs which would make me miss my connection in d.c. so drove to the airport early hoping I could catch an earlier flight to d.c. or find a different way of getting to San Diego. At the airport, agents were unhelpful for the most part, but there weren't any flights that would get me to San Diego before 8pm, meaning I would miss half the conference that I cam here for. All other flights from d.c. and from Richmond were taking off, but just not this flight with United. Reason was for weather delay(it's raining, maybe the low altitude you have to fly on a short trek is what prohibited them? Vs the other flights Airplane wasn't coming from anywhere else and was in Ric).

In any case, the other option was for me to drive to d.c. to catch the flight. Rented a car which United doesn't reimburse for since it's weather related delay per them. Drove through the miserable rain and traffic that is d.c.

And I make it to d.c. with ~20mins to spare. Board the plane as usual. I get to my aisle and see that's there's a 2yo in my window seat with father in middle seat. I figured he just looked at the ticket wrong so I just sat in the aisle seat. Later someone else boards and points out that I'm in their seat.

I check tickets with the father and sure enough we both had tickets assigned to the same seat.

Turns out even though I changed my itinerary at the richmond airport, United assumed I wasn't going to make my San diego flight so I gave someone seat off the standby list. There were a couple of extra seats, so all in all worked out, but annoying nonetheless.

I understand that majority of this was seemingly weather related which the carrier can't control...but they certainly did not help me try to make my scheduled itinerary, and the giving my seat away was a kick in the nuts.

End dear diary.

Tldr: weather delays happen, United gave away my seat.