channa

Bought a ticket for $228.10 - $200 e-cert and was quoted $28.10 add collect. Ticket was issued, and receipt showed $28.10 charged to credit card.

Since this is United, I actually check the charge posting, since I don't trust their post-merger IT, and sure enough the charge posted to my card slightly higher.

Not a huge amount, but in aggregate, they could be making quite a few bucks with this "tens of pennies" approach if they're ripping off others as well.

This same thing happened for 2 pax on 2 separate records. Both had the same incorrect posting.


RECEIPT:
VIXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX on Saturday, January 23, 2016. $28.10 USD per ticket for an additional total of $28.10 USD was collected.

CC POSTING:
01/23/2016 01/25/2016 Sale UNITED $29.03


Credit card is in USD, ticket was bought from united.com's USA site in USD, so it's not an exchange issue.


Anyhow watch your charges...

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Was it a tax/fee thing? Maybe 29.03 was taxes/fees? I'm thinking maybe ETCs can't apply towards taxes/fees? I don't have one available, so I can't look. If so, maybe there's still a buck or so left on ETC?

channa

Hmm, you can use ETCs on taxes, though. I've used ETCs to cover a whole ticket before.

Maybe it's a bug with base fares that are approaching the cert value.

escapefromphl

Is it possible the taxes are collected in a foreign currency? If there's a lot of fluctuation in the currency exchange rate this could lead to a discrepancy.

channa

It's a domestic ticket, though.

emcampbe

Was the charge you are seeing on your CC one that is an pending charge (I.e. Authorization) or an actual posted charge? The two can be different, and oftentimes merchants authorize a higher amount than they actually post the charge for. Just a possibility.

channa

Actual posted charge. The pending charge was correct, but has since dropped off. They actually posted the higher number.

Baze

If you now look at the receipt online when you go to the reservation, what is the breakdown of prices paid? Never used a cert before so don't know if it breaks that out.

channa

Receipt still shows the originally quoted amount.

An additional amount for the difference in fare was charged to VISA VIXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX on Saturday, January 23, 2016. $28.10 USD per ticket for an additional total of $28.10 USD was collected.

PTahCha

Have you called UA and ask them to explain? that's usually the first step, if you want to set up a CC dispute.

channa

It's 93 cents x 2 pax, I'm not really interested in spending time with UA on it or having UA putz around with it and probably break something else for a couple of bucks. I still need to fly the ticket.

As for a CC dispute, Chase would probably not pursue a dispute that low -- they'd just credit me and move on. So nothing would happen to UA.

Plus, UA would likely not acknowledge the real issue, which we all know, is that their technology hasn't worked since they downgraded to CO's systems back in 2012.

qisu

DOT complaint so UA gets the message?

channa

Now we're talking.

PV_Premier

gotta make those numbers for The Street somehow!

i agree, DOT them on the premise of 'post purchase price increase'. making them spend lots of hours on a dispute of $.93 would be especially rewarding.

channa

Filed a DOT complaint against UA for the overcharge. They left me a voicemail saying that the charge was correct, and the receipt shows the whole ticket price regardless of the form of payment (in other words, they didn't read my letter, detail, and copy of credit card charges I attached).

A couple days later, UA left another voicemail saying that it was an unintentional technical glitch, and they'll refund me the 93 cents x 2 tickets or whatever it was. I wonder if they sent their proposed response to DOT who may have rejected it as not addressing the concern.