> You're welcome to believe whatever you'd like

I believe my experiences and if you say that was your experience then I believe yours too. I was commenting on similar stories to yours that I heard/read about that had provided more information -- not yours in particular. Some people have consistently bad experiences with a company that others dont.

I've canceled United bookings in the 24h window many times. In all but one case it was as easy as clicking a button. The other case I had to call them, I think because it was around 23h after booking and there was some broken timezone math behind the button.