SA_robert

Over several days, I have tried to redeem some miles for a trip to Boston from Phoenix. I can get all the way through the process (picking seats, payment arrangements, etc.), but always end up with following message:


Error

! We’re sorry, but united.com was unable to complete your request. Please try later or contact united.com Support in the U.S. and Canada at 1-800-396-1751; the U.K., phone 0800 028 5003; elsewhere use the local phone number.

Are they trying to get me to purchase tickets instead of redeeming miles or …?

skycrab

Change your browser.
This happens to me using Safari on a Mac. It doesn't happen in Chrome.

IADFlyer123

Its actually been happening to me on Chrome with Windows 7 OS. I will try with IE or Firefox.

Kacee

No, just crappy IT. Errored out for me trying to change an award yesterday. Call it in. If you explain that you were unable to book online, they may waive the phone booking fee.

SA_robert

I am about to do that and appreciate all advice. Problem is that it is awkward to pick seats, do payment, etc. without flight data in front of you. It would seem that United is making this more expensive for them as I have to go through the whole thing with a human rather than on-line. Is this really what they want?

Kacee

???

Just request the same flights you tried to ticket online. The ticket will price the same as on the website. Once you're ticketed, you can choose your seats online.

If you want to use your UA miles, you have to work within the bounds of what's possible. Getting upset about UA's IT issues doesn't really move the ball forward.

kb1992

This has happened lot more frequently to me after April 1.

Not just booking awards. Sometimes when I tried to cancel an award reservation, the dreadful error message showed up even though I never modified the PNR.

Does anyone have similar experiences?

Kacee

I tried to do a very simple change yesterday - one ps flight to another. Got all the way through, errored out on the very last step.

When I called to fix it, discovered that the existing reservation had been cancelled, with no replacement. Great agent was able to make the change, no problem. Still found the cancellation rather disconcerting.

I agree this seems to be a new problem. I've made countless simple changes like this without incident in the past.

Asiatraveler15

Even though it was miles you obviously had some fees.

Just a suggestion check your credit card statement.

When the same happened to me there was not a record of a flight thru UA, yet my card was charged numerous times by them for the fee.

RandomBaritone

Sorry to be contrarian, but I feel I must correction this bit of misinformation, particularly since it's such an early reply.

This has nothing to do with your choice of browser platform. I use Safari routinely to book and change award reservations, on both Mac OS and iOS. It works fine. Indeed, the issue the OP described isn't even how a browser compatibility issue would manifest itself; you'd be much more likely to see issues with the site's display, or a general inability to log in. It sounds like a database issue on the back end to me.

The one localized issue it could be is a corrupt cookie. Happens all the time. I recommend OP dump all of your cookies with "united" in the name. You can Google the process to accomplish this. Good luck!

mherdeg

My MileagePlus account is pathologically incapable of canceling & refunding an award reservation and has been for a couple of years now. Changes work fine, but any "cancel and refund" for award reservations always triggers the "an error occurred, please contact UA" message.

I now always phone UA to cancel&refund an award because I'm going to have to call them anyway to fix it. It's much easier to have the conversation "please cancel&refund" than to have the conversation "UA cancelled my reso but did not set it up for a refund, please refund the miles and fees from the eticket."

Dunno what traumatic event it experienced but it's irreversible. Hope this isn't you, too.

kb1992

I suspect that this has something to do with their new beta site, which looks horrible to me.