msg75

Was early for my 5 pm ORD-LGA flight and wandering the B gates at ORD when I noticed a 3 pm flight that was delayed and just getting ready to board (it was about 3:30). Walked up to the GA and asked if he had any space in E+. "I've got plenty of room." I handed over my BP and said, "Great, I'll take anything in E+." The senior GA standing next to him piped in and said, "Don't forget to charge him $75." I said, "No, I'm a Platinum. There's no charge for a same-day change." She said, "Only Globals (her word) don't get charged." I said, "I'm sorry that's not what the website says and I've never been charged before." Then, this doozy: "I don't care what the website says! It's a good thing you got him because I would have charged you!"

Amazing...

Side Note - the GA who switched my BP had his laminated cheat sheet and had to ask the cranky GA twice how to process the change...he seemed totally bewildered by the new system.

demkr

I would call Customer Relations as well as send an email, and/or a snail mail letter with a written complaint about the agent.

Note the flight # and date and the gender of the agent for identification.

This is completely unacceptable behavior not only in treatment, but basic UA policy that she should know.

snic

Sounds familiar.

PSGlenn

WOW! Especially at ORD! They are usually pretty together with changes and support for elites. Must have been a bad day for that GA! Yikes!

love_to_travel

Wow.

This makes me wonder just how much a gate agent is supposed to know. If part of the job of a gate agent is to process same day changes, shouldn't they also know that they should not charge certain MileagePlus members for the same day change or to sit in Economy Plus? Or should they only know how to process the seat change? Or maybe the MileagePlus program is just too complex to completely understand?

Anyway, I'm sorry the OP had to go through that, and I would second the recommendation to send some type of complaint, so that at the very least the employee gets more training.

nova08

Exactly, this is nothing new from a PMUA perspective, they have sold E+ at the gate for a while and never was the policy that only GS had E+ access for free. I don't know where to even begin with this GA. It's not like they stated a boarderline rule that changed with the merger where I could see some confusion. They stated something that is flat out wrong and was never a policy

SFO 1K

The fee was for the Same Day Change, not for E+

Also, didn't FastAir know when/how much to charge for things automatically?
Does SHARES know if someone should/shouldn't be charged, or does the agent have to know the rules in their head and then apply some manual code to override a fee (or assess the fee)?

garykung

+1.

I wonder if it is for real or not. Even before full merger, PMUA allow 1P to do SDC without fee.

REPUBLIC757

I mean, I know keeping one's cool around GA's is probalby the right thing to do but I wonder if you yelled back what would they say? Would you have gotten hauled away by the TSA or would they have caved in?

nova08

Ok, my mistake, but still, as per above post 1P's still had free SDC.

Interesting point about a manual override. I want to say CO should have updated SHARES with this logic since they had free SDC for plats but you never know what CO did with SHARES.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that is never a battle you are going to win. Creating disruptive scenes in airports doesn't typically end well

channa

One would think, but they really haven't given their agents much improvement in the system in 30 years.

Combine that with the fact that other logic items fail in SHARES from time to time or the other unintended consequences (e.g., baggage fee waivers for pax split off an Elite's record; upgrades not being recognized; non-Elites on award tickets get Elite benefits if pulled from an Elite's miles, etc.)., perhaps a manual override is the most consistent way of doing it.

REPUBLIC757

I feel that gate agents for UA at ORD are hit or miss. One time during IRROPS (MX issue on ORD-EWR) the line in the concourse seemed to be half a mile long. So I went to the then RCC and they were able to help me out no problem. I wonder, would you have gotten E+ at the RCC -- since they might be a little nicer to an elite than a GA?

ORD Punk

The line saw in the Concourse (either by the dinosaur or near the IFL in C concourse) was the general help desk for pretty much everybody that doesn't have status, a decent phone number to call, or access to the RCC.

Anytime there is irrops, be it weather, lots of MX issues, etc, those lines get pretty long, especially in winter time, or during a particularly stormy summer day.

msg75

Thought about that, but in the end I did get the change and wasn't charged.

That's an interesting thought. I wonder if SHARES computes/levies fees automatically, or if it's a separate process.

I have to assume they were PMUA working the B gates at ORD, and I've been 1P or 1K for years so that's why her comment made even less sense. But I think when she saw Platinum/Star Gold on my boarding pass it didn't fit into her PMUA hierarchy of elites, so I was just a *Gold. Is it possible she didn't realize that I'm a United elite? The "But I'm Platinum" didn't register, maybe if I said "I'm Premier Exec" it would have made sense to her.

She seemed ready to rumble and I was pulling up the website on my phone, but the overwhelmed-by-the-new-system GA was already handing me a new BP in row 7 rolling his eyes while she was mumbling about how I got away with something.

I've never had a problem with a GA at ORD before, but, of course, they can be overwhelmed in IRROPS, so the RCC is/was always the best bet for getting anything done.

PTahCha

That's exactly my thought - FastAir automatically prompts the agent to charge fees when needed. A couple of years ago, during a IRROP, the agent built a new record from scratch, and the system prompted her to add-collect for standby. I asked her to put in my MP number, and seconds later out comes the DM card without the need for fees.