Originally Posted by
jsloan
. It was the complainant's choice to move a bunch of Ultimate Rewards points to United to try to book the award, and the risks should have been apparent -- even if the inventory wasn't phantom, it could have been booked by another passenger and he'd be in the same boat..
yes.. I understand if someone sniped your availability under you.. but if almost every availability for that airline is phantom and nothing can be booked across multiple days, then that's more than an annoyance.
United did reply. They reversed the miles transfer and gave some extra miles, tried to improve on phantom availability, but admitted no fault. I guess they just don't want DOT scrutiny ?
There are two replies. The supplemental one has more info about why there's phantom
(First response)
https://www.regulations.gov/document...2024-0034-0005
(Supplemental)
https://www.regulations.gov/document...2024-0034-0006
The award at issue involved flights on another air carrier, EVA, to which United did not have real-time inventory access.
For that reason, United disclosed on its website that award levels on partner airlines may not be available to consumers.
b. During the period September 25, 2023, through October 12, 2023, a Google coding issue prevented United from booking EVA flights and resulted in the error messages received by Complainant. For context, during the period September 27, 2023, through April 3, 2024, only 0.11 percent of the searches for flights on united.com resulted in a customer receiving an error message.
c. United acknowledges that the difficulties experienced by Complainant were not satisfactory and, despite the disclosures on its website, not acceptable to United. As a result of the type of difficulties experienced by Complainant, United has reviewed and modified its on-line displays to readily and clearly depict situations where tickets for other carriers are no longer available for redemption through United’s Mileage Plus Program. United’s “unavailability messaging” will inform consumers that the award is not available and that they should book an alternative award; awards with insufficient availability will not appear on subsequent searches by any consumer . the award is placed in the “penalty box” until its availability is resolved.
the last six months of 2023, United reversed approximately 50 Chase Ultimate Rewards transactions each month, many on the basis of goodwill.
50/month for 6 months is a lot, I'm sure there are others that didn't complain and didn't reverse.... Surprised United is willing to reverse, United really doesn't want DOT scrutiny?