scottandtracy

Hi. just wanted to get an opinion. i booked an award ticket for my wife and I exactly 3 weeks prior to our trip to avoid the "close-in" fee. it was 10:30ish pm on the west coast as I was looking for flights ... no fees noted in the preliminary ticket searches I did on united.com. around 11 pm, i made the final reservation and then noticed the $75 fees applied per ticket.

Since these were the only flights I could manage to find, I went ahead and booked them but immediately contacted united to see why the charges were levied as my flight was departing on october 30th. the confirmation emails from United for the award that were sent to me were dated Sunday October 9 at 11:12 pm PDT. in my mind, that is 21 days between reservation and departure. not by the minute or hour, but by the day.

any emails I sent to question the fees were replied with a "we can't help you". I called multiple agents and received the same response "our systems show the award was made on the 10th of october, so the fee is valid". even though my reservation was made not he 9th, the time difference in Chicago was considered the 10th

I went through @united and spoke with a rep and I sent copies of my emails showing that the award was indeed made on the 9th but Pacific time (it was the 10th central time). no help.

am I just really wrong here, or is this ridiculous...

mahasamatman

United bases its days on Central Time (or maybe it's Eastern Time - I can never remember for sure). It never pays to cut things so close that time zone is the deciding factor.

transportprof

United's time of record is Central Time. They are headquartered in Chicago, so this sounds reasonable to me.

If you want an airline that operates its computers in a later time zone, try Hawaiian, or perhaps Alaska?

scottandtracy

Got it ... never dealt with the time zone issues before when making award reservations. Now I know. Still think this fee is garbage ...

krazykanuck

Even pmCO was based in Houston, so also Central time.

Sorry OP. Sounds like you tried to cut it a bit too close

EmailKid

Call UA, tell them you bought 21 days in advance in your time zone, and ask for mercy.

But yes, as others mentioned (and I who tends to cut it close know all too well) UA is based in Chicago, and Central (daylight saving time currently) Time apply.

sexykitten7

Firstly I don't think OP is foolish for booking so close. Life happens. We've all been there.

Secondly, I know that holds are calculated based on midnight in the departure time zone. So that may be the issue here (OP didn't state the itinerary). Either way, it's worth asking for a waiver. UA always tries to weasel out of any/all contractual obligations

Kacee

It is kind of ridiculous, but UA gets to make the rules for its program.

I've often gotten a grace period on farelocked itineraries, which may explain why the initial search at 10:30 pacific time didn't show a close-in booking fee.

TennisNoob

OP if you have elite status it will help by calling the premier line. I'm sure one agent will eventually budge. If not HUACA.

Like Kacee said, it's ridiculous.
We plats even have an "close in change fee" now. (angry)

SunLover

IMO it is a bit unrealistic for UA or any global enterprise to consider the time zone of the party making the reservation.

Think about it: anyone around the world can book on the website. So the UA IT system is expected to (based on some internet footprint) do the math and convert the purchase receipt time into the buyers local time? Jeez I guess it is theoretically possible but what a potentially error prone mess.


SL

xliioper

Many email systems will convert the date field in the email to your local timezone, so you can't rely on that. I purchased an award ticket on UA this summer and my email client shows "Jun 4 at 11:33AM" (I'm in the Eastern timzone). However, looking at the raw email shows the following for the date header --

Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2016 10:33:05 -0500

-0500 is Central Daylight Time. Clearly, my email client was just trying to be helpful here by converting that header to EDT.

Also, there is an "Issue Date:" field in the receipt itself. This is going to be the ultimate source of the date.

emcampbe

I was wondering about departure city as well. 21 days should clearly mean 21 days before departure in the departure time zone. Otherwise, it can be less or more than 21 days.

Website may be using a server based, in say, central time, so calculate it that way. But that doesn't make any sense at all - not from a customer perspective.

If the flight was leaving from Pacific time zone, I'd call and insist on a refund of that close-in fee. If departure is in another time zone east of there, it would make complete sense to me, and OP really doesn't have an argument.