Sorry if this has been addressed elsewhere in the thread, but there's quite a lot to read through.
Anyway, maybe I'm just unlucky, but it seems like a decent percentage of the crews on these routes don't know about the free alcohol in E+ policy on these flights:
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...-services.aspx
I flew EWR->SFO recently and when the first drink service came around the flight attendant wanted to charge me for a beer (I'm PM, not 1K). I mentioned that it was supposed to be free in E+ on these flights and after a little bit of back and forth where she claimed how that was only for 1Ks (the policy for most domestic flights) I finally got her to go ask the purser who confirmed alcohol was free.
Then though, when the second drink service came around I again order a beer, this time from a different flight attendant. She also didn't know this was the policy, so I start explaining again, but the flight attendant from the first service overhears us and claims that it's a one drink per flight policy. At that point I was tired of quibbling, so I just gave up and gave the beer back, but does anyone know if there really is a "one-free-drink" policy for these flights? That's obviously the usual policy for 1Ks on regular domestic flights, but the website I linked above says "free alcoholic beverages" (as in plural), whereas the page that lists the 1K benefit clearly says one-drink per flight.
I've only flown these premium transcon routes a handful of times since status matching from DL earlier this year, but this is already the second flight I've been on where the flight crew didn't know this policy. Does this happen to others, or did I just get unlucky?