zombietooth

I have only ever gotten a dozen or so of the vouchers/skykits in my 20+ years with UA, and they were always for serious issues e.g. where connections were jeopardized or flights were missed because of incompetence, or for involuntary downgrades, or lost baggage, etc. On my last flight to Tokyo, two weeks ago on CO metal, my IFE didn't function at all for the entire flight and they ran out of meals for the main service, so I got no meal, but they brought me a couple of the mid-flight hamburgers (which suck). I was in Y, where I expect to suffer, so I didn't even bother to complain or tell the FAs about it so they could write a repair ticket. I tried to troubleshoot the problem in the IFE because I was once an electronic technician and, after experimenting for a while, I determined that the problem was most likely a loose/damaged wire or jack in the audio system because I could get one audio track sometimes, combined with a damaged controller, where some of the buttons did not function. This sort of damage is most consistent with abuse and, after reading above about the purposeful damage done in the name of voucher-mongering, I now believe that the damage to the IFE in that seat was purposeful.

I have had discussions with FT'ers on other threads where a discussion of the cpm yield that the average 1K generates for UA yielded a bunch of responses from Mileage Runners that indicated to me that they were nearly all trying to game the voucher system and using it to lower their cpm cost, in an effort to make 1K/1P with the smallest spend. So, I would have to disagree with others here who think that this activity is rare. I think that voucher-mongering is as prevalent as mileage running, if not more prevalent, because it would be more useful to the kettles to get a discount on air travel rather than trying to maximize their miles.