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Issues using UA Gift Certificates - [discontinued]

Old Nov 28, 2016, 8:35 am
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Last edit by: WineCountryUA
UA Gift Certificates Usage

Gift certificates as described here are extremely difficult if not impossible to use on UA.com. UA has discontinued this product and is now routing people to the new UA Travel Registry.

UA states (Nov 2016)
Give loved ones the world
We've decided to discontinue the United gift certificate program
, so gift certificates are no longer available for purchase. You can redeem any existing gift certificates and check your balance on the Check Gift Certificate Balance page. You can still help your family and friends get to where they want to go by purchasing gift miles. On the Buy Miles page, simply select Give Miles and log in to your MileagePlus account to get started.

We also invite you to check out united.com gift registry to see if your favorite traveler is registered to receive the gift of United flights.​​​


In order to use your existing gift certs, you will need to call in for ticketing.

Credit to 1KChinito
You can make a reservation online and select:

1. Other forms of payment in payment information
2. Cash in drop down menu if available --- "Pay in Person" is the name for the option now
3. Click purchase

A record locator will be created. You can then call UA with your record locator and your gift card information. This way, your airfare is locked and CSR has a much easier time to retrieve your itinerary instead of creating a new one, saving a lot of time and possible fare increase as you have experienced.

An UA CSR taught me this trick because I was in the middle of making a reservation and was unable to use my gift card. She walked me through the above 3 steps. My reservation was complete in a few minutes.

You may have to babysit your reservation until it is ticketed because it may take several weeks for UA to issue your ticket.
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Issues using UA Gift Certificates - [discontinued]

Old Nov 1, 2014, 4:40 pm
  #31  
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Programs: UA Explorer card, AA Plat, Copa Plat, IHG Plat,
Posts: 567
They reissue after first use with new #

Originally Posted by IAHtraveler
Anyone know how to resolve issues trying to redeem a gift cert online? I have a relatively large gift cert and after the 1st use, it won't go through online. Usually 1-2 calls to web support and they get it pushed through. Trying to book a ticket for next Thursday with the gift cert, I held it online.

Call 1 to Web Support to ticket it:
Agent: "Gift certs are only valid on United operated flights. Select only United flights and it will work."
Me: "They are only United Operated flights."
Agent: "Oh, you probably selected elite seats or exit rows, you must only select the economy seats."
After back and forth, I did this and it still didn't work. I had to give her the value and gift cert info 4x before she got it.
Agent: "Our gift certificate processing is down. You need to just keep trying until it's back."
Me: "I booked the ticket yesterday and tried a few times online, without success since then."
Agent: "Keep trying. Your ticket expires tonight at midnight local time, so get it in before then."

HUCA

Agent: "This is a gift certificate; these must be run through our Group Reservations desk. I'll transfer you there."
Me: "It's only a reservation for 1 person. Why would it need to go through Group Reservations?"
Agent: "That's how our system is set-up. Please stay on the line while I transfer you."
At 10PM on a Friday, the Group Reservations was closed.

HUCA

Agent: "It won't work online because we still are trying to resolve issues with the merger. IT has been notified of this many times, but they won't do anything about it."

She "pushed it to ticketing" and extended the hold for an extra 24 hours.

I called today (20 hours later, as the ticket expires in 5.5 hours). Agent said that it takes "7-10 days to process by the e-ticketing desk". He extended the ticketing until 11/6, the day of the flight.

Any other thoughts/suggestions?
From my experience they reissue the cert after each use with a new cert # and the new balance on it
rrohio is offline  
Old Nov 1, 2014, 5:48 pm
  #32  
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Central Virginia
Programs: UA 2MM
Posts: 1,231
I redeemed a Gift Cert last week online without any difficulty. I did not use the total amount and just did a dummy booking with the remaining amount and got to the book stage before canceling.
Doug 1029 is offline  
Old Jan 1, 2015, 1:00 pm
  #33  
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 88
Im getting the same!
ascg is offline  
Old Jan 2, 2015, 3:20 pm
  #34  
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Chicago
Programs: United 1K MM, Marriott Lifetime Titanium, Hilton Diamond, Hyatt Globalist
Posts: 724
Been trying to use a gift certifcate for a couple of weeks to no avail.
LinBros is offline  
Old Jan 7, 2015, 7:16 pm
  #35  
 
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: NYC
Posts: 1
Had a similar problem. After a surprisingly quick and painless call to United, they said to just use the six letters and not include the string of numbers. Lo and behold, it worked.
murakami is offline  
Old Jan 30, 2015, 11:17 pm
  #36  
 
Join Date: Dec 2013
Posts: 68
tried and does not work.
tried booking, and not work either.

any one has a solution? need to call?
rfclub is offline  
Old Jan 31, 2015, 9:11 pm
  #37  
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: PHX
Posts: 4,782
Won't work for me either.
lkar is offline  
Old Apr 16, 2015, 10:46 am
  #38  
 
Join Date: Apr 2010
Programs: UA Plat, Avis First
Posts: 23
Anyone having a difficult time using newly bought UA gift certificates? I keep getting an error message stating the united.com is unable to confirm the gift certificate. The number starts with H3Y1GR016 XXXXXXXXXX with the X's all numbers. That's the only information the email showed aside from the amount of the gift certificate. I've tried various combinations of just numbers, deleting the space, etc. Thanks for any help.
monserco1 is offline  
Old Apr 24, 2015, 7:49 pm
  #39  
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 127
UAL Will not honor GC - Rant

Went to book two return tickets from LGA to ORD for friend and me. I use my explorer card so each of us can get 1 free checked bag. Go through whole booking process. getting ready to pay. GC says "After you have selected the flights you want, provide your GC number on the "Complete Your Purchase" page. On ual.com I get down to the box on the res screen that says "Continue to Purchase" and, since I wanted to purchase the ticket, like a dummy - I click the box. Next thing I know, the total charge is on my credit card, nothing about my GC. I immediately call res on the phone and after a long time telling them about my problem (including giving them the GC # several times, they tell me that I need tech support.

Okay, so after about another 20 minutes on hold, I get someone for whom English is not a primary language and I can barely understand. After going through the whole res scenario again, including the GC number several times, she informs me that I cannot use a GC if anyone else is on the res. Only can use GC for a single person on the res. Only solution is to separate the res by cancelling my portion of the res and leaving my friend on the existing res. She will refund my ticket cost and re-ticket me so that I can use the GC. Unfortunately, this leaves my friend without the free checked bag and puts us on two PNR. Not acceptable. I tell her that the GC doesn't say anything about only valid if one person is on the res. Too bad she tells me. These are United's rules. (familiar refrain anyone?)

I ask to elevate and after another fifteen minutes, the "supervisor" tells me to go fly a kite. Okay she used different words but you get the meaning.

I don't like separate PNR since IRROPs seem to occur so often I would call them Reg Ops.

I tell her to re-establish the original res and ignore the GC. I'll probably sell the GC and get the cash. Only kidding. @:-)

United has too many obstacles to a pleasant flight. And I'm not even at the airport yet!

Last edited by FlyingHi4Now; Apr 25, 2015 at 8:25 am
FlyingHi4Now is offline  
Old Jun 21, 2015, 11:36 pm
  #40  
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: California
Programs: AA EXP, lowly UA 1K; Hyatt Diamond, SPG Gold, Hilton Gold; National EC, Hertz PC
Posts: 2,212
Had a GC from 2013 I realized I had not used. Tried to use it the other day, got an error message on the purchase page. Tried to check balance, got another error message. Decided to wait a few days to today, same error messages. This time I called up the web support number and an agent seemed to be able to look up the certificate and take my CC information for the balance and do a phone booking but now six hours later nothing has ticketed. I can see the reservation but it does not even say confirmed, it is just sitting there in my account in some reservation abyss. Anyone have any recent experience? Think I will call back in the morning if nothing changes.
adambadam is offline  
Old Jun 30, 2015, 8:40 pm
  #41  
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: New York
Programs: UA, AA, Hyatt, SPG
Posts: 86
Same trouble here, was this ever resolved?
BlueEyedDevil is offline  
Old Jul 9, 2015, 8:59 pm
  #42  
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: MSP
Programs: Marriott Lifetime Titanium, UA Silver, Hertz 5*
Posts: 911
Any new experiences using these confounded gift certificates? I am seriously regretting getting 2 x $200 of them from my Amex Plat credit. Should have stayed with Southwest.

First call (of over 35 mins) resulted in a complete moron who couldnt even recreate a simple MSP-NYC itin that was available online and insisted that these were the only fares available (basically he wasnt getting the booking class that was available online) Then he insisted on charging me a $25 booking fee (despite the fact that I am Gold).

After giving up on him got a smart girl who atleast put together the itin (w/o a booking fee) but she couldnt get the gift cert to work. She said it will be ticketed in 3-5 days. Seriously?

Hoping this gets done and I dont have to call in multiple times.
crazyhorse is offline  
Old Jul 25, 2015, 1:45 pm
  #43  
 
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Wesseling, NRW, Germany
Programs: UA *S , MR LT Titanium, HH Diamond, Hertz PC
Posts: 3,936
Just got a gift certificate that I want to use on an international flight. When I paste the gc number into the appropriate field, I always get the following error message:

! united.com was unable to validate your Gift Certificate at this time. Please try again later. If the problem persists, contact united.com Support at 1-800-396-1751 for assistance.
Is there any way to resolve this apart from calling? The certificate I am using is only a few days old and I can verify the balance successfully...thanks in advance for any tips you have!

Greetings - Dirk
djohannw is offline  
Old Jul 25, 2015, 2:40 pm
  #44  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Ewa Beach, Hawaii
Posts: 10,899
Originally Posted by crazyhorse
Any new experiences using these confounded gift certificates? I am seriously regretting getting 2 x $200 of them from my Amex Plat credit. Should have stayed with Southwest.

First call (of over 35 mins) resulted in a complete moron who couldnt even recreate a simple MSP-NYC itin that was available online and insisted that these were the only fares available (basically he wasnt getting the booking class that was available online) Then he insisted on charging me a $25 booking fee (despite the fact that I am Gold).

After giving up on him got a smart girl who atleast put together the itin (w/o a booking fee) but she couldnt get the gift cert to work. She said it will be ticketed in 3-5 days. Seriously?

Hoping this gets done and I dont have to call in multiple times.
Gold is not exempt from the booking fee. Only Plat and higher.

http://www.united.com/web/en-US/cont...r/default.aspx
Baze is offline  
Old Sep 18, 2015, 3:58 pm
  #45  
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 46
Double Ordered Gift Card :9

hey guys I was trying to order a $100 gift card from UA and somehow the browser put 2 x $100 cards in the basket and I didn't notice. What the best way to contact united and to get this resolved? What's the department I need to speak with? thanks!
corzlite is offline  

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