HELP -- United Rep Mistakenly Cancelled Flight & Seats Now Gone
Looking for any assistance I can get--any advice would be much appreciated!
Last week, my husband and I (he Premier Silver, I Premier Gold) booked 2 round-trip business class MileagePlus award tickets nonstop JFK-JNB on SAA. We had planned to fly from JNB to CPT upon our arrival. Today, we noticed that an award ticket opened up from JNB to CPT, such that we were able to fly JFK-JNB-CPT for the same mileage cost and a nominal change fee.
We logged into the United website, went through the "Change Flight" screen (selecting the JFK-JNB leg as the ONLY changed flight), selected the JFK-JNB-CPT routing, and tried to complete the change. There was a website error and we were unable to complete the transaction online.
We called United, and spoke to a rep who was able to add the JNB-CPT flight to our reservation, as we'd hoped. He indicated that he would have to "go into" our return flight as well, and we clarified that we did not want to change the return leg. He indicated there seemed to be an error, but he would fix it and send us our new itinerary.
Unfortunately, when we received our new itinerary, he had apparently CANCELLED our return flight JNB-JFK. Our only booked flights were JFK-JNB and JNB-CPT. We called United back, and we were told that the business class seats on the return flight were gone and could not be retrieved. Our only option was to book economy seats and hope, in the meantime, that perhaps business availability would open up.
We are travelling in under a month and this is completely outrageous and unacceptable. We chose this vacation due to the availability of business class non-stop award seats, especially on a 16+ hour return flight. Certain of our accommodations will not be cancellable without fees until the last minute, so the solution to "wait and see" is not sufficient. I am especially frustrated at the situation given our Premier status--we have made it a point to make United and its partners our preferred carriers (and, in fact, only carriers in recent years) and we charge the vast majority of our spend to our Presidential Plus card. How frustrating that (a) our seats were lost due to no fault of our own and (b) United is unable to correct their error.
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Welcome to FT... sorry that your first post was about a very difficult problem to get resolved. I base that upon past experience reading about others' similar stories on here. This would be easier if UA flew to South Africa because they could open up space on their own aircraft to fix their error. But since they don't fly there you're going to have to convince someone at UA to essentially "buy" you business class seats on SAA...and that is not going to be easy even though it was their mistake. Don't get me wrong.. in my opinion they are the ones that screwed up and they need to make it right even if it costs them..but justice isn't always served in these situations.
Another possibility is to check and see if there is business space on Lufthansa or Swiss out of Frankfurt/Zurich to JNB, or on SAA out of London... You could then fly UA to one of those cities and connect. Not as ideal as what you had I know. Regardless you're likely going to have to escalate this to someone higher up than a rep who answers the phone..they are not empowered to make decisions like you're going to need to get resolution. I don't have a contact for you..other than to send a private message to "UA Insider" on this board..others will have better suggestions.
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Welcome to FT!
I second the advice to escalate to a supervisor, especially the error was on UA part. At the same time, recognize that it may be difficult because a partner airline is involved. Be polite, firm, and persistent.
Not that this will help the OP now, but I recall seeing suggestions on FT that it's better to book RT award travel as separate OW's, since changes to the going leg of a RT could cause problems with the return.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by worldwidetraveler
Not that this will help the OP now, but I recall seeing suggestions on FT that it's better to book RT award travel as separate OW's, since changes to the going leg of a RT could cause problems with the return.
Yes, if your travel doesn't involve utilizing a stopover. Probably would have been smart in this case.
What amazes me is that the reservations agent did not even notice that he had cancelled the return flights or, if he did notice, made no effort to re-instate the flights. There should be something in the reservations records which might explain what happened.
I recently had a return leg on OZ cancelled because UA didn't send over the ticket number to OZ (a common problem). I discovered this only after the passenger had already travelled on the outbound, so I simply insisted that UA get the seat back from OZ (which they did after a long time). I had no way to contact the traveler; her citizenship also meant that there were very few other reroutes possible since she would have needed a visa to get to many countries. But it took a lot of insistence on my end (including pointing out that if I hadn't happened to check my itineraries, she would have been stranded in ICN without a ticket and they would have had to take care of it then).
Thanks so much for all of the helpful replies. I've been trolling this site (and this forum in particular) for awhile now, and I'm glad I decided to join the conversation.
Update: We called back and after some prodding, the United rep called SAA to see what they could do. Sounds like UA needs to e-mail SAA regarding openining up additional business class award seats. The SAA rep was optimistic this could be done, but thought it would take 24 to 48 hours. We were told to call back tomorrow to check in. Seems unecessarily inefficient. From what I've read in the past (particularly, TPG's recent experience booking award travel for this same route), I am optimistic more seats will open up, although I am not satisfied that UA/SAA is unable to resolve this error immediately, or at least definitively.
SEA1K -- As you suggested, the supervisor I spoke to earlier did say that she could open up UA business class award availability on a UA flight from Europe to JFK if we could otherwise find a flight from JNB to a city that UA services. While not an ideal solution, I did look into this, but was unable to find seats that worked for our dates and times. I also tried to go down the "buying" us business class seats route--I suggested that we purchase the seats, UA reimburse us, and then take our miles + taxes, essentially converting the seats to award seats. This seemed to be beyond the scope of the UA computer system, though that is of course an unsatisfying response. I will direct message UA Insider--thanks for the recommendation.
PTahCha -- Thanks for your advice! I escalated the problem to a supervisor, but unfortunately didn't make much more progress (aside from waiving future fees if upgrades become available).
worldwidetraveler and RZachSmith -- I have certainly learned my lesson and will be sure to book two one-ways for award travel in the future (where possible). Great recommendation, thanks!
JetAway -- I'm baffled as well. I have a feeling the agent did notice, as he indicated there was a problem he needed to fix, and find it completely unprofessional that he left the problem unaddressed and unresolved. I've had my fair share of frustrating and inconsistent encounters with United reps, but none have made such a serious blunder and then failed to address it. Next conversation we have, I'll have to ask what the reservations record says.
c1mth0g -- What a nightmare! Hopefully UA is able to get our seats back as well.
Thanks so much for all of the helpful replies. I've been trolling this site (and this forum in particular) for awhile now, and I'm glad I decided to join the conversation.
Update: We called back and after some prodding, the United rep called SAA to see what they could do. Sounds like UA needs to e-mail SAA regarding openining up additional business class award seats. The SAA rep was optimistic this could be done, but thought it would take 24 to 48 hours. We were told to call back tomorrow to check in. Seems unecessarily inefficient. From what I've read in the past (particularly, TPG's recent experience booking award travel for this same route), I am optimistic more seats will open up, although I am not satisfied that UA/SAA is unable to resolve this error immediately, or at least definitively.
Hopefully you will get your original flights back.
But you may have to be flexible. I did some award checking and SAA has a fair amount of business class availability JNB-MUC, JNB-FRA, and JNB-LHR. I was checking the week of February 10 since you indicated that you are traveling in the next month.
If you cannot get your original flights back, you may be able to connect via Germany or England.
OP should do nothing which would cause UA to touch that record for the next 48 hours or so (when SAA gets back regarding opening award space). Short of UA buying J space on SAA in the interim, which it won't do, only bad stuff can happen.
UA is essentially asking SAA to do it a favor on OP's behalf. This isn't a snap decision for SAA and I am certain gets checked by several supervisory levels before it happens.
Let this run its course. Presuming that SAA opens the seats, it will notify UA which will complete the booking and notify OP. If this doesn't work, then OP can try other approaches.
But, the worst thing is for the record to be mucked with while the request is pending.
Water under the bridge, but for future reference, I always have the CSR read back the final itinerary before I hang up. Email followup is great, but little errors get picked up when the CSR is forced to actually tick through segments.
Be cautious of two one ways as that can also mean 2x the change/redeposit fees (waived of course if you have status, but if you don't...this can add up quick).
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Often1
Water under the bridge, but for future reference, I always have the CSR read back the final itinerary before I hang up. Email followup is great, but little errors get picked up when the CSR is forced to actually tick through segments.
Read it back? I always politely but firmly request the agent to remain on the line while I log out and then log back in and see for myself. And if that requires getting the record locator for the partner airline and they wait while I figure out how to check my rez on their website, then wait they will (and have). I've found a number of errors this way that were immediately able to be corrected with the original agent still on the line. No matter what has been going on in the past, I can always find time to wait until I'm in front of a computer before I call. Trust nobody. Innocent mistakes and incompetence both abound.
JetAway -- I'm baffled as well. I have a feeling the agent did notice, as he indicated there was a problem he needed to fix, and find it completely unprofessional that he left the problem unaddressed and unresolved. I've had my fair share of frustrating and inconsistent encounters with United reps, but none have made such a serious blunder and then failed to address it.
At that point the agent has a reservation he can't fix, and no consequence for leaving it that way. I'm disappointed but not surprised at the outcome in an environment like that.
cheltzel, thanks for your research. I hadn't seen any re-routes through Europe in business class leaving February 24th and arriving back in NYC by the morning of February 25th, but I'll keep looking in case that winds up being our only option. I hope if we do have to re-route, we are compensated for our "flexbility"--happy to be flexible to make a bad situation less so, but hopefully United will appropriately acknowledge their error and the inconvenience it has caused.
Often, as a FT newbie, can I ask... what is "OP"?
I completely agree with the comments about double/triple checking the itineraries, both with the agent and online, before hanging up. Kicking myself for breaking the usual habits in the morning rush... and paying for it!
