Hello My Fellow Flyertalkers,

The removal of Dr. Dao has brought a renewed interest in Congress wanting to overhaul airline policies.

On May 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 2017, the House Transportation Committee is holding hearings on Oversight of U.S. Airline Customer Service in Washington D.C., Messrs. Oscar Munoz and Scott Kirby are in attendance.

This afternoon, the Committee asked me to prepare a letter, which I am enclosing in this thread. They were very familiar with my intended class-action lawsuit to hold United accountable with "lifetime" promises made to loyal customers over the decades.

The Committee has set up an e-mail specifically for United Airlines. Since the hearings are happening as this is being written, if anyone who was a pre-merger United Airlines Million Mile Flyer can send a quick e-mail with the subject line "United Airlines Million Mile Flyer Relief" it would be appreciated.

The following letter is enclosed, if you want to copy and paste from parts of this letter, feel free to do so. As you can see, in this letter, I make reference to a complaint made with the Department of Transportation.

Please, send your own Million Mile Flyer story to the following e-mail address. This is directly to the House Transportation Committee and specifically for United Airlines. There are a group of us who can be very powerful if we combine our voices. This is bigger than just United Airlines. The lawsuit was to serve a precedent to other companies in the travel industry - case in point is this article just published by Gary Leff on View from the Wing called "When Lifetime Status in Taken Away".

[email protected]

Dear House Transportation Committee,

I send this e-mail to the Committee in the hopes of being able to hold United Airlines accountable for promises it made to their top flyers for almost two decades. I seek remedies on behalf of myself and about ten thousand other flyers.

The Committee may be familiar with Lagen vs. United Continental Holdings Inc. In 2014, I sued United on behalf of myself and about 10,000 flyers who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel and flew an actual one million miles. For years, this group was considered pre-merger United's top flyers/customers.

Long before the merger with Continental, in the 1990's, United started a new program called, "Million Miles and Beyond." United was the first airline to create this new level - once one flew an ACTUAL 1,000,000 miles, they would receive lifetime "Million Miler Flyer" status. With that status came a bunch of "lifetime" benefits. On average, it took ten years to obtain Million Mile Flyer and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in business with United.

Other airlines came out with their version of "Million Miler" status. The lifetime benefits offered to flyers of American, Continental, US Airways, etc., was a step below United's. Additionally, the other airlines would include class of service bonus, partner airlines and other ways - for example, if you opened an American Airlines CITI credit card, the flyer would get 100,000 miles added to their million miler bank.

United had no gimmicks, they kept it simple, one had to fly an actual one million miles regardless of where one sat on the plane (what was called "BIS" miles or "Butt In Seat" miles). However, United's Million Mile Flyer "lifetime" benefits were incredible, one being guaranteed lifetime Premier Executive, second tier in the Mileage Plus Program (please see attachment). All other million miler programs gave their flyers the lowest elite level for a lifetime. United differentiated themselves by calling the status "Million Mile Flyer" as opposed to "Million Miler" because one had to fly an actual million miles.

When Continental merged with United in 2014, Jeff Smisek, the new CEO, went after this specific group, United's Million Mile Flyers, by downgrading and taking away all the promised LIFETIME benefits, even though UA flyers were constantly told nothing would change with regards to status (enclosed). He then upgraded all Continental one million milers. The issue for me was what does LIFETIME mean when a company promises "lifetime".

It went through the courts, I won, UA appealed, they won, I appealed, all the way to the 7th District Court of Appeals. One of the judges called United "fraudulent", "deceptive" and "dishonest".

A key section of the Court of Appeal wording starts on Page 7, i.e.

We close with a word about the common-sense argument that Lagen presents and our dissenting colleague emphasizes: that United must be accountable under some body of law because its representation that it was bestowing “lifetime” benefits on its Million-Mile flyers is irreconcilable....

The judge said that United should be held "...accountable under some body of law." It seemed to me the court was telling me to take it up with the DOT for help because there is no where else to take it for relief - until I came across House Transportation Committee.

United stated they can say anything, in this case "lifetime" and then not mean "lifetime". I went to the FAA/DOT on their website and lodged a complaint. My complaint was answered by UA's attorneys and not by DOT. In other words, DOT passed the complaint to UA. Sadly, the DOT did not perform its intended purpose with respect to the complaint.

United simply said, when we say lifetime, we don't mean it.

I am hopeful the Committee can be of help to myself and former Million Mile Flyers. Rather then send the Committee a bunch of snapshots and other things, I am sending one screenshot from the United website in 2007 as well as assurances from United everyone's status would not be affected with the merger. There are more screenshots for other years; they are available if the Committee requests them.

Thank you in advance.

Yours,


George Lagen

Cook County, Illinois