Originally Posted by
username
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The accoutants are probably doing the Q2 numbers and see a huge spike of miles awarded and started questioning... Miles are liabilities on the balance sheet, right?
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+1. The timing of this promotion (4/15 to 7/15, with bonuses posting "6-8 weeks after the promotion) is very friendly for the accounting. Collect all the revenue in Q2 (April-June), with marginal liability (the miles they'd dish out with flights as normal).
"6-8 weeks later" for bonus distribution places it at mid-September, close to the end of Q3 (July-September). And a "Oops! Goof in IT!" (since "Offer is subject to change without notice.") pushes distributing the bonuses into October, into the melee of Q4 holiday travel.
You've collected the revenue (and the interest) in Q2, and not have to pay for the liability until Q3/Q4? Not bad at all...
Perhaps it was the independent accounting team doing their Q2 audit that discovered the error. The marketing team projected a certain number of miles they'd be liable for as a result of this promotion (the "cost" of the campaign).
Then, on June 28, the accountants decided to open up the record for how many miles they had given away, uttered some expletives, and halted all bonus awarding until they could figure it out.
Originally Posted by
WhyPayRent
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So...looks like they found out... by an "audit." Because it is very clear that the IT team is strong enough to be able to figure that out.
Maybe not IT, but the accountants? The bonuses distributed would be credited to the same liability account (e.g. "Up to 25K Bonus"). Probably just a simple find-and-delete on all records that matched.
Originally Posted by
Wx4caster
... it might have been nice if they would have at least documented the withdrawal in the account log so we would know what happened rather than just having the miles vaporize.
Originally Posted by
steve64
To add salt to the wound, they don't post a debit to my miles, they just remove the "erroneous" credit. Is that really considered a valid accounting tactic
Originally Posted by
andimal
...You can't just suddenly erase an accounting entry and tell everyone that "trust us, we'll get it right this time". If you absolutely have to remove the miles (note to COdbaUA: you didn't have to) then provide an entry for the debit, then add a new entry for the proper credit!
Originally Posted by
goodeats21
Removal of miles with absolutely no record on our accounts.
This is accounting basics, show the transactions so it is very clear what is going on.
Originally Posted by
DBCme
The timing and purpose of this aside, the post prevented me from doing my own audit to try and track down where all the missing miles went, and an email/call to UA which probably would have taken multiple attempts to get an explanation.
But this is the end result of a find-and-delete. Should they mess up when they award the bonuses post-7/15, there's no record of it. Those that check their online account less frequently than FTers probably won't remember the promotion, especially without a "-15000" written on their statement.
Marginal thanks to UA for at least e-mailing/posting on FT, but the handling of this couldn't be much worse. Ideas for next time to make it worse:
- E-mail on/after the end date of the promotion.
- Cancel the promotion entirely on/after the last date of the promotion.
- No e-mail at all.
- Completely zero-out account balances when making "adjustments."