Alright - I just submitted the below to customer service. Basically, i went through a 5 hour marathon with United on the weekend trying to use my travel bank funds. In the end - Totally unable to use it. - See my letter below.

Would love some thoughts!! or what you think they may actually do....

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Hi,
I currently have a travel bank with united.. This past weekend, I was trying to book a flight to Tokyo. This issue , the travel bank can only be used on united.com USA (since its in USD$) site. The credit cannot be applied being because my credit card and billing address are in Canada where I live. - The credit initially works - Then when i try to pay the remaining balance on my canadian credit card it kicks the credit out and re-pricing back to the full CAD$ amount.

So i figured at this point i would give united a call to do this manually over the phone.

Initially, i was transferred to another department and waited 1 hour on hold with no response at which point in hung up.

I called back and this time was transferred to united.com helpdesk.
This agent was quite friendly and spent two hours trying to make the reservation. No one could understand why they could not apply the credit.

I was then transferred to united mileage plus.
This agent's solution was to for me to temporarily move my address to the united states - How is this a solution? Following this i would have to submit legel documentation to move my account back to Canada - I'm not making this up!!! Then i inquired about my credit card still being Canadian, at which point he realized that would not work either...

He then transferred me to web support and hung up on me...

Web support was even more unhelpful - Their suggestions included having a US credit card with a US address - Once again, an impossible solution for me.

In the end I spent over 5 hours on the phone with united and ended up buying the flight myself from united.com with no use of the credit.

Obviously, this was not an ideal result.

I have an UN-useable credit apparently.

I'am looking for a solution here - Either a credit issued in Canadian dollars, a cheque written to me for the amount of the credit, or a refund on the flight I bought in the amount of the credit (this would be ideal). In addition, i spent 5 hours of time. Some compensation for this would be appreciated.

I look forward to your response.
Appreciate your help.