UA recently ran a promotion called "Spring in Hawaii" for travel 04/01 through 05/31 2001. In E-mail and on their web site they offered and unusual reward; double FLIGHT miles for promotion code MPN561. Later they may have changed the offer to read double bonus miles. But I made copies of the original offer.

We all know UA make offers as "double miles" or "xxxx bonus miles" which could be worder clearer, but Mileage Plus flyers have come to know they do not mean flight miles and therefore are not counted as flight miles for Mileage Plus status which distinguishes between flight miles flown and other miles. But this offer clearly was for flight miles! Because of personal reasons this has been a hard year to fly enough "flight" miles for Premiere Exec. status so when I saw this offer, even though it meant very inconvenient travel timing, I booked my wife and myself giving the promotion code and asking that it be entered into my reservation record since I really needed the double FLIGHT miles. When asked the reservationist said "if they say 'double flight miles' that's what it means". But now UA is reinterpreting this offer so that any extra miles are bonus miles and not flight miles.

I wrote United giving complete details and proof with photocopies of their web site offer, etc. In response I merely received a perfunctory response saying "We (UA) regret the confusion that the Spring in Hawaii promotion has created." They apologized, said thanks for writing, and wrote the matter is now closed. To me this is bait and switch advertising. I am new here so what can we do to get UA to stand up to their offer?

I hope we Web flyers can unite to help make United stand good on their promotional offers.

P.S. Hopefully Randy Peterson can help resolve this but how does one get things to his attention? Can anyone post in his personal forum or does a moderater need to do that?

How does UA define the miles required for elite qualification anyway, do they use the term "flight miles" without any modifier, like "actual paid flight miles" or "qualifing flight miles"?

Sounds like you need a better lawyer then UA has, lots of luck!

You can post in his forum, no need to be a moderator. Good luck!!

Ambiguity is the airlines and their lawyers best friend.

When I call an airline about a policy question, I always get the full name of the CSR, which office they are working out of and note the date and time of conversation.

Since airlines tell us that 'caallls may be monitored for quality assurance', the burden is on them to prove me wrong. On rare occasion, I've asked for a fax confirmation/response after finishing up with a CSR. If they refuse, I ask for a Supervisor, if they refuse, I ask why the hesitation. If I can't cover my ..., I reluctantly have to cede the issue to the airline.

Like you, I believe 'flight miles' connotes status, as opposed to 'bonus miles'. Your best bet is finding a slew of other past UA promotions and compare wording to build your case.

Don't be discouraged or intimidated....yet!!!

A similar situation happened to me several years ago (so the details may be a bit off). United was running a tiered promotion where you got more bonus miles for each different Star Alliance partner that you flew. The offer specifically said that "any flight" on each partner airline qualified - there was absolutely fine print such as "other restrictions may apply" or "qualifying flights only". So, I booked a mileage run trip to Europe on Lufthansa for the sole purpose of getting another Star Alliance partner flight, and chose the cheapest fare which was "W" class.

After not receiving credit for the flight, or for Lufthansa as an additional Star Alliance partner, I started corresponding with the Mileage Plus Service Center, asking that both the missing flight miles and additional tiered bonus miles be credited to my account. They replied that I wouldn't get credit for the flight, since they were contractually bound with Lufthansa to not provide Mileage Plus miles for flights in "W" class. Despite arguing and demonstrating that no published material listed this restriction (including Premier Newsletters, and various published ads and mailings for the bonus offer), and pointing out that when I checked in for both Lufthansa flights I verbally confirmed that I would received Mileage Plus credit, United refused to give me regular miles for the flight, or the extra tiered bonus miles, even though I had taken "any flight" per the explicit requirements of the promotion.

Ever since then, I've been determined to do the following when there are a lot of miles (or important miles) at stake. I've come close several times to doing this, but have never actually done so.

Write a nice fax/letter/email to the Mileage Plus Service Center before taking your flights, similar to the following:


Dear Mileage Plus,

I want to thank you for the wonderful "Spring in Hawaii" offer (MPN561), offering double FLIGHT miles, as described in your email of DATE and currently shown on your web site at XYZ. It's offers like this that keep me flying with United. I would otherwise have trouble qualifying for Premier Executive status this year, so I have decided to take advantage of this offer with my reservation ABCDEF, and in fact, that's the sole reason that I'm taking these flights! Thanks again for the great program.

Sincerely, Chris


When United denied your request for the expected mileage credit, I would simply write to United and the credit card company requesting a full refund of the ticket charge, and include a copy of the fax/letter/email, ticket receipt (showing the reservation code), and the original offer (e.g. email and web page in the above case).

DLB,

IMHO, I think you are grabbing at straws here. The United policy clearly states "When you fly 25,000 paid miles or 30 paid segments on United in a calendar year, you attain Premier� status in the United Mileage Plus� program." Unless the offer clearly stated that the bonus miles would count towards qualifying for Premier status, it is only your wishful interpretation of "double flight miles" as qualifying as double status miles.

I agree, it doesn't matter how many bonus miles they give you or what it is based on, I don't think they would have counted for Status miles, no matter what you were told.

Only the miles flown count, last year would be the perfect example of that, they doubled all the bonus miles, but still cut back the requirements to get more people to qualify.

One thing that would help DLB's case is that on the paper mileage statements that United mails out, there is the line item "Total United Flight Miles in Program", where it only lists base flights miles flown that would qualify for elite status, and that it does NOT include any bonuses or other types of non-flight mileage credits. It could be argued that the word Flight is used by United to distinguish between actual flown miles versus all other miles.

But at the same time I agree with those of you arguing that he is "grasping at straws." If I had seen the original promotion as described by DLB, I would never have believed that I would be getting double "flight" miles without actually seeing them post to my account. I know from experience that United simply doesn't give away status qualifying miles like that.

It's unfortunate that this is what FF programs have come to. It doesn't matter if it's 5 miles or 50,000 miles, the airlines/hotels should stand behind their offers and make good. Instead, the number of offers that have been rescinded or changed mid-stream seems to have increased at least ten-fold over the past year or two. LatinPass and MyReceivables.com come to mind, but there are many others. In my view, acceptance of these changes without putting up a fight will only lead to the airlines/hotels doing more of the same.

DLB, my only suggestion if you believe you have been treated unfairly, is to work your way up the chain and take the matter as high as you can possibly go within UA and MileagePlus.

If you really feel you have been wronged, file in small claims court. I would guess that UA will either not show up or settle with you out of court to avoid the agravation and time. Your cost would be minimul.

"...Ambiguity is the airlines and their lawyers best friend..."

Excellent point!

Sad, isn't it? And VERY aggravating!

I believe they should "make good" for you!

I like JRF's idea too!

I'd fight it on principle!

Good luck to you on this!

mikel51:
I would like to clarify a bit in response to your comment; "IMHO, I think you are grabbing at straws here. The United policy clearly states "When you fly 25,000 paid miles or 30 paid segments on United in a calendar year, you attain Premier� status in the United Mileage Plus� program." Unless the offer clearly stated that the bonus miles would count towards qualifying for Premier status, it is only your wishful interpretation of "double flight miles" as qualifying as double status miles.

UA's offer did not mention "bonus miles" only "double flight miles". I understand the normal mileage status rules but UA and other airlines make up all sorts of promotions (including some exceptionally good ones). They can arbritrarily make any kind of offers or liberalizations they want and are not bound by their rules, if they wish to be more liberal. So I do not think it was wishful thinking on my part at all, merely basic reading read of the words ""double flight miles". More careful wording on their part would have eliminated the confusion or as anthonyanthony said; "One thing that would help DLB's case is that on the paper mileage statements that United mails out, there is the line item "Total United Flight Miles in Program", where it only lists base flights miles flown that would qualify for elite status, and that it does NOT include any bonuses or other types of non-flight mileage credits. It could be argued that the word Flight is used by United to distinguish between actual flown miles versus all other miles."

"Flight Miles" means status miles. How many time have you heard "the number of flight miles for Premier Qualification..."?

They then changed the language of the offer to "bonus miles" which is another indicator that "flight miles" means status miles. They either made a mistake (i.e. someone was confused when drafting the terms of the offer) or they decided to renege on the deal.

You should fight this. How? I don't know...

First off, I believe that "flight miles" does clearly imply status miles.

A few years back, I made it to elite level on Qantas, and the double points offer they had going on trips to the USA was a real boost in getting there, since all the points counted towards status. I'm pretty sure that one of the reasons Qantas changed to "tier credits" is that that method of calculation of elite status is divorced from distance travelled.

Secondly, it seems amazing to me that the USA has no consumer protection on such matters. Is there no government-appointed authority to force companies to keep the promises they make in their advertising?!

A comparison to the DL anniversary double miles promotion is in order. DL went out of their way to stress in their promo that the double miles counted towards elite status. UA can argue their way out of this situation as it was not clearly spelled out.