sbtinme

Dear fellow FTers, I need YOUR HELP!

I've been at this game for decades, and I thought I knew virtually all of the ins and outs of the game. But, this evening, I hit a roadblock that I don't know how to get around.

LOOOONG story short -- I have booked a 60K award (using my CO miles) for a semi-complex round trip to Central America.

Looks like this:

PWM - PHL (US)
PHL - MIA (US)
MIA - PTY (24 hour stopover in PTY) (COPA)

PTY-TGU (10 days in TGU) (COPA)

TGU - PTY (COPA)
PTY- ORD (COPA)
ORD - PWM (UA)

Note that I was able to find SAVER FIRST ("o" and "i") inventory on every single leg, so I'm confirmed in first on all legs -- with the exception of the very last one (ORD-PWM).

At the time of booking (yesterday), only "x" was available, so I accepted it and the agent advised to watch from time to time for "o" to open up.

Well, sir, this afternoon, lo and behold, one seat in "o" was made available for this flight! I immediately called CO res and asked to have that last leg moved from coach to first class since there was now "o" inventory available.

The agent was happy to oblige and quickly acknowledged that "o" was available, but the system was giving him "trouble" with the pricing. He put me on hold for a good ten minutes and came back to advise that his supervisor was working on it.

Another 5 mins passes and he comes back and tells me that in order for me to get into F, they'll charge me an extra 10K. I told him that was an error.

The saver first award from domestic to central america is a flat 60K round trip and there was no reason that changing the last leg into code "o" should cause a miles increase to the ticket. He agreed, but put me back on hold.

After 5 more minutes, his supervisor came on the line and was clearly maxxed out. He was blunt and told me that there was "nothing more they could do" since the system prices these bookings. I told him I couldn't see how this wasn't a calculation error on the part of the system and he said nothing back. Awkward. Then, I asked him to explain to me why he thought that would make any sense and he advised me to call United customer service in the morning.

UGH. They're insisting on 70K in miles when this is clearly a 60K booking!

Bottom line is that I feel sure that I'm eligible to be in first on that last leg based on "o" inventory availability, but I'm hitting a massive roadblock with res.

For those of you with extensive experience with CO, I'd sure appreciate any advise or assistance here. How should I proceed? Is there a efficient, compentent person at CO/UA that I could make my case to?

Feel free to send me a PM if that's best.

Many thanks, all, for your guidance on this one.

paranoiatx

The first thing I would do is call again and get another agent. The skill sets vary greatly when it comes to having to manually override an award booking that is legal but doesn't auto-price properly.

If the whole itinerary is already in I/O, there really is no reason you can't get that last leg for the same award level.

starflyer

If you get the same story from another agent and you have a spare 10K in your account, I would consider asking them to make the chance and pay the extra 10K. Explain that you want to make sure you get the seat since it's available, and that you'll follow up with a separate request to get your extra 10K back if the system doesn't automatically credit it to you.

sbtinme

Thanks. And, obviously, I absolutely agree.

There's a little more to the story. I have called back in the past hour and was told the VERY SAME THING by yet another agent who was trying to be as helpful as she could. She was totally professional and checked with a supv, but came back after a good ten minutes and said that the supv checked with his mgr and the word was that the 70K was correct -- take it or leave it.

So, here I am. Feels like a total roadblock. If they haven't already, they're likely to note my record for being a crank.

Any suggestions from this point? Any internal contacts who can make quick work of this sort of issue?

MANY MANY THANKS ALL

Hadn't thought of that -- might try it. But based on the runaround I've been getting today, my level of confidence is low when it comes to mileage issues and front line's ability to get a super simple pricing issue resolved.

Baze

I would get back on the phone now and say you will do it for the extra 10K if they are willing to deposit a courtesy 10K into your account to cover it as everyone can see you should not have to pay the 10K, this is a system glitch. I would not do it and wait and see if the 10K get credited later. Conference call with One Pass if you have to get them to do it.

sbtinme

At this point, I'm incredibly frustrated and I've invested nearly 2 hours into this tonight. I'm done for tonight and will wait until tomorrow morning, when ...hopefully ... I'll have better luck finding competent folks with a little common sense.

Every single supervisor who got involved tonight had no problem insisting that 70K was correct and that it wasn't a calculation error. Even when I really pushed back hard on it, there was simply no budging. Both were unable/unwilling to offer me a justification for it, but neither was willing to budge or assist further.

If that's what I get from two supervisors, I'm not feeling enthusiastically helpful about my efforts tomorrow morning .....

At what point does one simply give in?

Should I call res tomorrow or customer service?

channa

Sorry to hear about you going through this. This has been an ongoing bug with CO pricing rewards since the first day they entered Star Alliance more than two years ago.

Basically CO's logic for identifying which UA flights have 2 or 3 cabin first class is flawed. I wrestle with it on many of the CO awards I price since there's almost always a UA segment in there here or there.

The quick way (and this only works if you haven't invoked any of your better inventory available to you as Platinum is to advise the agent to price the award as a non-Elite award. That sometimes works.

The other way is for them to manually price the award. An agent can do it, but you have to persist to find a willing one. Keep in mind this increases their call time, so they're incentivized not to take on a lengthy transaction such as this.

I would say that if the non-Elite trick doesn't work, keep trying. You'll usually get this resolved after a few more agents.

craz

I like the way you think!

no way would I blow 10k for FC on such a flight and a CR7 to boot, nor is there much a sup can do if it kicks back its 70k except maybe if they agree it should be 60k to put 10k into teh acct to cover it.

OP is FC still avaialble on all the other flights?,if yes ask them to book a tkt and see if they say its 60k or 70k

Ocn Vw 1K

As the OP is using CO miles, and calling on CO staff using CO processes, I'll move this to the PMCO forum for added discussion. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator.

sbtinme

As of tonight, no. Apparently, I got the last seat on 2 of the other legs, so I'm unable to price it out on my own. That was my very first thought, but cannot do at this point since no addl inventory available.

Really a crazy situation to be in. SUPER frustrating to have so many supervisors unwilling to lift a finger or offer a reasonable solution to me when the problem is so evident.

star_world

Don't believe that elite desk agents are "inventivized" (I hate that made up word) to keep phone call duration to a minimum - do you have anything to base this on other than repeated posts by you saying they do? I was told exactly the opposite during a 50min call a few days ago as an agent worked on a bunch of complex changes on some tickets for me. No time pressure at all.

channa

I have had phone agents tell me that call time metrics are watched closely.

Any agent who tells you otherwise is likely being gracious.

Halo117

Just a thought. When did you book your award travel? Was it before the changes that took place before June 15, 2011?

A few guesses to what is happening:
1.The new reward chart shows 30K miles each way to Central america in SaverFirst, but also 10K for saverfirst for CA to CA. 30+30+10=70K. The system could be repricing your stopover as a one-way Central Am to Cental Am.

2. The system could also be causing the "Teepee symbol{shift 6 on US keyboards}" (FT keeps giving the thumbs up if i try to use the correct symbol) caveat to your pricing. It states that a stopover can be added to any roundtrip for 10K. Therefore it is adding 10K to your travel.

3. The rules on the CO website say that a stopover is permitted on any roundtrip travel, but the new charts post 6/15/2011 contradict this statement as no mention is found specific to stopovers in Central Am, but is for in itineraries for N. Am.

Ultimately I asked when you ticketed your itinerary as the "new chart" could be the reason the system is recalculating your itinerary. Please remember that you are reticketing the entire record even if you make a cabin change to one segment, therefore the new ticket is dated after the 6/15/2011 award changes.

channa

It was frustrating for me as well the first time I dealt with this more than two (2) years ago.

Now it doesn't bother me. I just make sure I have enough time to deal with CO's lack of empowerment before I call to deal with it.

A good agent can resolve it in 5-10 minutes. You'll know when you get the right one -- they have to manually price the award (if the non-Elite pricing trick I mentioned above doesn't work),

channa

I doubt it's these. Though you can ask the agent what the award codes it's using to price it. With those, you can troubleshoot it pretty quickly.