About a week ago, I sent the following message to UA Customer Relations:
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">There has been quite a bit of confusion lately amongst both passengers
and gate agents regarding VDB compensation. My understanding is that if
the customer chooses, they can opt to take travel credits instead of the
free ticket voucher. Many gate agents (a large percentage, in fact)
absolutely refuse to issue these, insisting that UA's policy is to ONLY
issue the free tickets.
Is this correct? If not, could you please provide me with a statement
and/or something the agent can look up so the next time this happens I
can politely have something to reference? The free tickets don't do me
much good because I prefer to travel internationally, but I'm generally
happy to take a VDB when time allows.</font>
This morning, I received the following response. I personally plan to print this and carry it in my travel wallet. But there is, in fact, a different system code than the DBC/FREE we'd been referring to before that apparently helps clarify the policy. The response was:
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Thank you for your email. We are always glad to hear from our Premier
Executive Mileage Plus members.
In checking our policy for "voluntary denied boarding compensation", you
are correct. Our passengers have the ability to accept the free ticket
or travel credits. This policy is found under the profile
s*ual/denied-vdb. The initials VDB stand for voluntary denied boarding.
Our agents determine the amount of the travel credit to be given based
on guidelines in this profile.
I do apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate you bringing this to
our attention. It was a pleasure to provide you with this information.
We look forward to welcoming you on your next United flight.</font>
I did respond to the rep to let her know of the challenges I've read over the last week, especially at ORD. I've asked that they send a system message to gate agents to remind them of this policy.