Originally Posted by teddy25

where should DOT draw the line on the size of the error, for honoring the tickets?

4 miles?
40 miles?
400 miles?
4,000 miles?
40,000 miles?

Will the people say it is unethical to travel on the 4 miles fare be ok with a 40, 400, or 4000 miles mistake fare?

you can NOT tell me 4,000 or even 40,0000 miles for first class round trip tickets to HKG is ethical if you think 4 is unethical. what is the difference if you know a big error made by the United's IT department?

would you have taken advantage of the error at 4,000 or 40,000 miles?

I just don't see any difference. going 40 mph or 50 mph on a 30 mph road are both speeding.

Originally Posted by janetdoe

There is a point where it is no longer a 'incredible deal/steal' but just a 'discounted price'.

4,000 - Yes I would have taken it. That's still less than 10% of the normal cost.
40,000 - Maybe, if that was the round-trip total. Definitely wouldn't have booked more than one.

But driving 100 in a 30 mph is "driving with intent to kill". There are degrees of egregiousness for almost any violation.

Originally Posted by MarkXS

What most posters are missing is that there's a subtext to the DOT regulations, and we should be seeing it: The reason that the regulations explicitly say "mistake fares" are covered and cannot be raised after ticketing is to provide a deterrent from sloppy practices, deliberately or not, by inflicting a penalty on the airline that tries to get away with weaseling out of honoring its mistakes.

Mistakes aren't supposed to happen. That's why they're called mistakes. "Miss-takes."

In the past, airlines had impunity when the made a mistake. Now the DOT regulations say, "tough luck Charlie, eat it and let the customer fly."

If eating it causes millions of dollars in losses to the airline, than that's a darn good "teachable moment" to encourage that and other airlines to fix their business processes, controls, and systems to not do it again.

All us current or ex-UA/CO flyers are pretty disgusted with all the systems and business processes and bad decisions around IT and training resulting from the botched merger, right? Well isn't making United eat it and honor these EXACTLY the kind of lesson SMI/J needs to get about how much he screwed up? Me buying flights on Taca, LAN, and Alaska instead of UA doesn't exactly send a message the way a DOT order to honor the tickets or pay the fine does.

I didn't get in on this one, and I had no excuse, because I wasn't in jail without WiFi (to paraphrase MommyPoints BoardingArea blog.) So I don't have a dog in this race. I've never gotten this good a deal; just the Y-cabin $314 LAS to MUC and $214 LAX-LHR LH/UA combo meals a few years back, and getting screwed out of a better one on Air Canada a couple of years ago, months after booking. But this is now, and the DOT rules are now different and stronger, and explicit that mistakes must be ordered.

Those same rules also require one cash price quote, without the nonsense about what's base fare, YQ, taxes, 9/11 fee etc - it's got to be quoted as "what does the customer's form of payment get charged to be able to fly on the plane?" Put that concept together with the "mistakes must be honored" and these tickets did cost money, did have value other than the miles. A monkey could see that UA has very little wiggle room here, and that their UA Insider response was old-rules-thinking.

UA screwed up, and under the law nowadays in the USA, they have to honor their screwup. Which is a great incentive to stop screwing up.

Originally Posted by rankourabu

Wow lots of bitter people here who didn't get a ticket and now pulling the ethics card!
?

Originally Posted by Antepali

So what do we do? If we have tickets for travel in the next week do we just show up to the airport and travel as we normally would?
I would hate to go to the airport and be told-- sorry but we can't honor this ticket, etc, and have a dilemma.

Do we call UA to reconfirm or something-- but we're attracting more attneinton? Not sure...

Originally Posted by chinatraderjmr

"That is the right thing to do," says United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski. In 2007, United honored a business-class fare from Los Angeles or San Francisco to destinations in New Zealand that was missing one zero: it was sold as $1,062 plus taxes and fees instead of $10,620 plus taxes and fees.

Originally Posted by apk123

Despite united's claims, the full price charged was 4 miles:

1) Airlines (including united) often have promotions with redemption levels below the published charts.
2) Airlines often display one price at the first screen and another price at the subsequent screen. Always, the price displayed in the last page is what matters.
3) A breakdown of the charges above the "total price" is an optional section for informational purposes only.

So none of united's excuses invalidate the fact that the "full price" requested was 4 miles.

Originally Posted by flyinghigh77

what do you mean? he sounds like united does or does not have to honor it?

Originally Posted by chinatraderjmr

file a report w the DOT backing up United and letting them know (from a customers point of view) that it was very obviously a mistake from what I saw on my computer.

Originally Posted by mre5765

You demand IDB compensation and stand your ground until the airport cop tells you to leave or face a trespass charge. The IDB comp will 4x the some of DOT tax and fuel surcharges. It will cover your cab fare and then some, maybe enough to cover a nice dinner.

Originally Posted by mre5765

Therein lies the answer to UA's problem. Overbook J and F, and IDB all the 4 milers.

Originally Posted by chinatraderjmr

But as someone who saw this deal, saw what the site said and could have taken advantage but chose not to...

Originally Posted by chinatraderjmr

I was wondering what prompted UA to say in 2007 that the policy was to honor mistake fares. I found this quote from UA on a post above:

"That is the right thing to do," says United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski. In 2007, United honored a business-class fare from Los Angeles or San Francisco to destinations in New Zealand that was missing one zero: it was sold as $1,062 plus taxes and fees instead of $10,620 plus taxes and fees.

There is a HELL of a difference between selling a ticket for over $1000 and selling a ticket for 4 miles. Many people really have no idea what a business or first class ticket costs. Even though UA sold a tkt for $1000 that should have been $10,000, it is still within the realm of possibility that "some" people did not know it was a mistake - or such a big mistake. Everyone knew that 4 miles was a mistake. The people STILL trying to take advantage if this are only making themselves look like fools. This is not what the DOT had in mind when drafting these rules to protect us. Someone above said he spoke to the DOT and the guy at the DOT was acting like the whole thing was funny or a joke. The whole thing IS funny and IS a joke. Those of you wasting your time, spinning your wheels trying to get "justice" just look like petty little people and it looks like UA plans to give you exactly what you deserve; NOTHING!!!

Originally Posted by travelinfoo

You are NOT owed the extraordinary fare!! It was very obviously a mistake fare and to try to justify it is appalling, both in terms of the increased workload to United and the frivolous lawsuits.

Originally Posted by CDKing

I said back in 2007 that I would excercise every day. Does that mean i'm stuck with that decision for 20 years? Just becaue they said it does not mean its now the rule for time to come.

Originally Posted by as219

Just out of curiousity, do you think UA will ever fix its IT problems in the absence of singificant financial incentives to do so? ...

Originally Posted by chinatraderjmr

I wonder if UA would be withing their rights to look at everyone who had decided to persue this and just close their MP accounts. UA says they reserve the right to close any account for any reason and the people that really want to make a big deal out of this by dragging UA thru the mud are certainly customers that UA no longer want.

Originally Posted by as219

IMO, of course, UA's stupidly-worded CYA emails have made a bad situation worse.

Originally Posted by cblaisd

Presuming you are asking in good faith, yes, I do think that UA will continue to try to fix its too-often-screwed-up IT. There have been fixes that have happened since 3/3. It all just proceeding too slowly, but, yes, I think they are committed to doing so -- I'm just not convinced that they have enough of the right people working on it.

Originally Posted by cjermain

This is the thing that surprises me about the whole ordeal.

I personally never redeemed my own 4 mile trip because I felt there was a 0% chance I'd ever get to take it. I don't think that many people availing themselves of the 4 mile fare actually thought that they'd ever get to take it, either: it was sort of a let's see what happens thing.

But then UA comes back with a single, legalistic post, followed by a long silence, even in the face of media coverage. This allowed everyone to work themselves up into a frenzy. People started to view the thing adversarially: "UA screws us over time and time again". Because of UA's handling of the situation, people who never expected to take the trip became enraged, and now feel entitled to take it.

If United had been active on this board (the way CO Insider used to be on the CO board), giving explanations, gently pushing their point of view, and (especially) if they'd offered some small token (a $100 e-cert or 10K miles) and offered to listen to any more specific concerns individual people had, then IMHO this whole thing would have blown over.

This whole thing has been handled incredibly badly.