United website glitches, charges me $490; United blames me and refuses refund
Disclaimer: This transaction just happened about 10 hours ago, but I'm so mad at United's customer service that I felt the need to post something now. I plan to dispute it with my CC company if no other solution works. I wanted to share here because the website might be having problems and United's India customer support has spent the last few hours driving me absolutely insane with their incompetence, so I'm venting a little. Also, I would like to know what the best way is to get this $490 refunded. United customer support has not been helpful at all and I'm worried that if I dispute the credit card charge I will lose my award flights and 80,000 miles. Do you have any suggestions for working this out with United?
Timeline
August 2012. Wife's account has approximately 87,000 miles in it. We booked flights to EZE from wife's account for 60,000 miles. Account now has 27,000 miles in it.
November 2012. Cancel flights to EZE due to schedule change. Miles were not redeposited. Account still has 27,000 miles in it.
January 2013. We rebook the canceled tickets and use them for new tickets to Hawaii by going through "Change Flights" link on the My Reservations page. The Hawaii flights are 80,000 miles. My wife's account is debited for the 20,000 mile difference. Her account now has about 7,000 miles in it. But for some reason my credit card was charged $490 for the purchase of 14,000 miles at some point during the transaction. United's customer service can't explain to me how it happened or produce a receipt.
Long Summary: My wife and I booked two one-way flights from CVG to EZE on August 29, 2012 for travel on December 24, 2012 from my wife’s United account for 60,000 miles (30,000 x2). The flight schedule was moved up by more than four hours, which made it inconvenient for us to travel on Christmas Eve. We canceled the flight and decided to rebook with the miles at a later date for a change fee of $100.
On January 27, 2013 (yesterday), we chose to use the miles from the EZE flight to partially pay for our trip to OGG from October 5, 2013 through October 13, 2013. Immediately prior to the purchase, my wife’s MileagePlus account balance was 27,190 and my MileagePlus account balance was 6,601. The flights from ORD to OGG were 40,000 miles each for a total of 80,000 miles. This obviously left a 20,000 mile deficit that needed to be covered by additional miles. We chose to use 20,000 miles from her account, which were immediately deducted from her account, leaving her with 7,190 miles in her account. This should have been the end of the transaction (60,000 miles from the previous flight + 20,000 miles from her account = 80,000 miles to cover the cost of the ticket).
I checked my Citi credit card after the transaction and saw 3 charges from United: $5, $100 and $490. The $490 charge was alarming and I immediately called United. I received the most incompetent service I can recall receiving from a CSR. He kept repeating that we had purchased 14,000 miles at a rate of $35 per 1,000 miles for a total of $490. At no point during the transaction had the United website asked if we wanted to purchase additional miles.
I eventually got through to his supervisor, who informed me that there weren’t enough miles in my wife’s account to cover the purchase of the flights. I reminded him that (1) my wife’s account still shows a balance of 7,190 miles (why weren’t those zeroed out under his scenario?) and (2) 14,000 miles is an odd number of miles to purchase for an account that still had 7,190 miles and flights that required 20,000 additional miles. He refused to walk me through the components of the transaction and instead kept repeating that I had purchased 14,000 miles on the website. I asked him which frequent flyer number had purchased the miles with my credit card and he said that information is not available to him. It’s not surprising that the CSRs can’t respond to questions if this is how a supervisor handles anything that requires basic critical thinking skills. I asked him what time the transaction occurred and he said 3:45 pm local time, which is one minute before the timestamp on the United confirmation email for our flights, so it’s obviously linked to the purchase of the flights somehow.
My Theory: I have 6,601 miles in my United account. My best guess is that I was accidentally logged into my United account when we looked up the reservation with the confirmation code and tried to rebook the flight. When we logged into my wife’s account in the middle of the transaction to pay the additional 20,000 miles owed on the ticket, the United website somehow still saw a 14,000 mile deficit that needed to be purchased before ticketing the reservation. The odd part is that the website charged me for these 14,000 miles yet still deducted 20,000 miles from my wife’s account (proof below), and I still have 6,601 miles in my United account. You would think that 6,000 miles would have been deducted from my account if my credit card was also charged for the 14,000 miles. Not to mention that 14,000 miles was never credited to either account.
Customer Service: United’s customer service has been incredibly unhelpful. The representatives I’ve spoken with have lacked any ability to reason through the error. One (the supervisor) said he was transferring me to a special department that would help me sort this out. What he really meant was that he was getting rid of me by transferring me to the phone number’s main menu, causing me to start from scratch. At no point has United been able to produce a receipt showing that we purchased 14,000 miles.
Proof: Below are the screenshots that I took after the transaction:
This is the original ticket booked in August for 60,000 miles.
This is the ticket we rebooked in January for 80,000 miles.
These are the credit card fees, which break down as follows:
1. $5 = $15 of fees in January minus $10 of fees in August (see tickets above for details)
2. $100 = rebooking fee
3. $490 = 14,000 miles * $35 per 1,000 miles
These two screenshots show that my wife’s January 27th balance was 27,190 before the transaction and 7,190 miles after the transaction. Her 2012 year-end balance was 25,668 miles and she earned 1,514 miles for a flight on January 8th and another 8 miles on January 3rd for credit card spending. That adds up to 27,190 on the 27th. You can see on the summary that the flights were charged to her account on January 27th for “40,000 miles” each (these line items don’t take into account the 60,000 miles we used from a previous flight).
This screenshot shows that my account balance is 6,601 and has been for quite some time. Neither my account nor my wife’s account shows a purchase of 14,000 miles.
tl;dr: United charges me for purchasing 14,000 miles at $35 each during a rebooking of an award flight. They can't produce a receipt. They can't tell me which account purchased the miles. They couldn't answer any of my questions on the phone.
Programs: UA 1K, Marriott Platinum, Enterprise Exec
Posts: 6,737
OP you can't pull from two accounts to book. You somehow bought the miles by mistake but not due to UAs fault. Let it go. It also looks like you posted the wrong screenshot from wifes account.
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OP you can't pull from two accounts to book. You somehow bought the miles by mistake but not due to UAs fault. Let it go. It also looks like you posted the wrong screenshot from wifes account.
That's my point, though. I didn't pull from two accounts. My wife's account was the original purchaser of the ticket. And we pulled the additional 20,000 miles from her account (see her account balance that went down from 27,190 to 7,190 after the transaction). My account was not involved in any way except that I may have been logged into it when I started the rebooking.
Also, how can I just let it go? If I purchased the miles (I didn't), then at a minimum I should get the 14,000 miles credited to my account. As it stands, they've deducted 20,000 miles from my wife's account and charged me for 14,000 miles. They don't get to do both.
Summary: My wife and I booked two one-way flights from CVG to EZE on August 29, 2012 for travel on December 24, 2012 from my wife’s United account for 60,000 miles (30,000 x2). The flight schedule was moved up by more than four hours, which made it inconvenient for us to travel on Christmas Eve. We canceled the flight and decided to rebook with the miles at a later date for a change fee of $100.
First, welcome to FlyerTalk, and sorry to hear about the problem with the credit card charge.
Unfortunately, I do not have very meaningful suggestions to offer, beside the fact that if you were not informed about the purchase of the extra miles you might have a case with the CC company (but it could be difficult to prove unless you have screenshots of all the steps of the purchase). Certainly charging for missing miles without warning is a shady practice. A better approach would be to deny the ticketing because of insufficient miles.
Just let me add for your future reference that if there is a schedule change of 4 hours, you are entitled to reschedule the flights at a more convenient time, or to a full refund, without paying any fee. You can just call reservation and tell them that the schedule change is unacceptable for you. Your right is spelled out in the CoC (Contract of Carriage).
Programs: Rapid Rewards, American AAdvantage, former CO Platinum, Overentitled UA 1K (since 2012)
Posts: 177
I do not understand about your eticket receipt for the 80,000 miles. Why does it not show credit for the 60,000 miles + additional 20,000 miles pulled from your wife's acct. to make up for the difference?
I think you also need to send an email right away to customer service explaining situation & documenting all before 24 hours passes, just to have everything in writing, including all your screen shots in the email.
Also, call UA in the daytime when you can speak to someone in Mainland USA and not someone in India where there may be a language barrier. Ask for a supervisor.
I do not understand about your eticket receipt for the 80,000 miles. Why does it not show credit for the 60,000 miles + additional 20,000 miles pulled from your wife's acct. to make up for the difference?
I think you also need to send an email right away to customer service explaining situation & documenting all before 24 hours passes, just to have everything in writing, including all your screen shots in the email.
Also, call UA in the daytime when you can speak to someone in Mainland USA and not someone in India where there may be a language barrier. Ask for a supervisor.
Good luck.
Thanks. I agree that it's odd that the account shows two 40,000 mile charges. I would have expected it to be the way you described. The account was only charged 20,000 miles, so it was definitely a rebooking and not a new flight purchase. Just a very weird transaction all around. Something screwy happened.
OP you can't pull from two accounts to book. You somehow bought the miles by mistake but not due to UAs fault. Let it go. It also looks like you posted the wrong screenshot from wifes account.
I don't think OP was trying to get an award by pooling miles from two accounts.
It was hard to follow, but here is what I think is going on.
Bedore yesterday his wife had 27190 miles, and also two 30000 mileage awards.
She then booked two 40000 mile awards.
The initial math is thus:
27190 - 40000 - 40000 = -52810 .
To cover the deficit, she canceled two 30000 mileage awards, which makes the math thus:
-52810 + 30000 + 30000 = 7190
And 7190 just so happens to be his wife's current balance.
So she did not need to purchase RDMs for $490 to cover her latest awards.
Also her account does not show an RDM purchase.
Neither does his account.
OP is theorizing that SHARES thought it had a deficit of 20000 miles, thought it was getting miles from OP's account, thought it would get the miles from 6000 in OP's account and the 14000 purchased RDMs.
So, OP, I would dispute the $490 with the credit card company, since the RDMs have not been credited.
If UA responds by creditng miles to either account, then contact the mileage plus service center.
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I do not understand about your eticket receipt for the 80,000 miles. Why does it not show credit for the 60,000 miles + additional 20,000 miles pulled from your wife's acct. to make up for the difference?
I think you also need to send an email right away to customer service explaining situation & documenting all before 24 hours passes, just to have everything in writing, including all your screen shots in the email.
Also, call UA in the daytime when you can speak to someone in Mainland USA and not someone in India where there may be a language barrier. Ask for a supervisor.
Good luck.
The recent activity summary on his wife's account shows an award redeposit of 30000 miles on August 29. Presumably the full recent activity shows a second 30000 miles redeposit.
As OP says, they can't charge $490 for miles that he didn't get.
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Robert Crandall on American Airlines: it's a great company that does important work. But airlines are not an investment.
The recent activity summary on his wife's account shows an award redeposit of 30000 miles on August 29. Presumably the full recent activity shows a second 30000 miles redeposit.
As OP says, they can't charge $490 for miles that he didn't get.
Ah, yes, it appears you are correct. I hadn't even noticed that. So it does show the refund for the 60,000 miles as would be expected.
As others have noted, dispute it with the cc company. Forget about dealing with UA. But pull together a concise, straight-forward account of exactly what you did for the cc company to investigate and leave out the theories.
Thanks. Your summary is correct. Sorry it's a little hard to follow - I can make it a bit clearer in the OP.
Good.
Also, if UA tries to keep your $490 and credit to your account, the thing to emphasize is that mileageplus does not allow awards to be funded out of two accounts. If UA tries to keep your $490 and credit to your wife's account, the thing to emphasize is that your wife did not need these miles to complete the transaction.
Lesson learned: always have the miles before making an award purchase.
Lesson learned: always log out then log in before making an award purchase.
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Robert Crandall on American Airlines: it's a great company that does important work. But airlines are not an investment.
The credit card transactions are just authorizations, right? It could be that the auth won't turn into a charge, and this will all go away.
I've had friends throw crapstorms in the past because of auths (with me telling them to wait the whole time), only to find that the item in error never actually posts.
