For the first time I have booked a indirect flight.
I booked a while ago and United have changed the flight times a few times and I now have a very short connecting time in IAD.
Could anyone tell me - do I have to re-check our luggage in? or will it be tagged through?
Your luggage will be checked through but after Immigration you'll have to collect it, go through Customs, then hand it over again. Depending on how busy it is, you may or may not have to queue. We've done both. And once we had to wait while the bags were swabbed.
Do they have a seperate immigration queue for conecting flights?
When I flew through IAD there was a separate queue but it was busier than the other one. It seemed the vast majority of people had connecting flights.
Is Washington a easy airport to get through?
IMHO, no. Whilst I would fly to Dulles, if at all possible I wouldn't transit there.
If I miss the flight and the next flight is not until the following day, will they put us in a hotel?
I strongly disagree with the poster who says the airline would put you into a hotel. It is not the airline's responsibility to get you through Immigration, therefore it is not their responsibility to put you into a hotel. I'm not sure that it's even their responsibility to get you on another flight, if it's not their fault that you missed the one booked.
If you miss the connection because your first flight was delayed, that's different, they'll re-book you. But even then, provision of a hotel would depend on the reason for the delay and airlines are not known for their generosity. If your flight arrives into IAD on time but you miss the connection because of delays at Immigration, I cannot see the airline paying for a hotel.
Thanks in advance....the time is drawing near and I am starting to worry!!
I don't want to make you worry but I think it's better you are forewarned.
When we transited IAD in 2010 we had 2.5 hrs between flights. We arrived on time and didn't have to change terminals. But we only just scraped onto our connecting flight. The queue at Immigration was fairly long but not excessive; collected the bags, through Customs and handed bags straight back. The problem was when we rounded the next corner and, despite having gone through Security at Heathrow, getting on the aircraft and not having been outside a 'sterile' area, we had to go through Security to get into the terminal at IAD! It was very poorly organised and took a ridiculously long time.
We thought we had more than enough time between flights, had planned to get something to eat. In the event, we only just made the connection.
As I've already said, I wouldn't choose to transit IAD again. But if I had to, I wouldn't accept a connecting time of less than 3 hours, preferably a bit longer. If yours is shorter then my advice would be to check for yourself online for a better connection, then contact United and tell them that's the flight you want. I've had experience of United changing flights and giving unrealistic connection times but have found that if you do your homework so that you can tell them which flight you want to move to, they will do it.
In fact once when I phoned, before I could even say why I'd phoned, the agent looked at the reservation and told me the connection time wasn't long enough and he'd need to change it. It may be that your flights have been changed by a machine, if you see what I mean, but when a human looks at it they'll see the new connection isn't feasible.