flyer31

OK got your point, but there is still a discrepancy here. UA blessed all those who flew till July 21st and I feel how can we have 2 different end results for different people who signed up for the same 4 mile deal.

andyh64000

Probably because that is what they agreed to with DoT. People already en route or just about to be might be legitimately disserviced with hotels, rental cars, etc. and so UA agreed to honor those tickets.

zombietooth

A single incident would likely not cause the closing of your account unless you were booking tickets with your miles and selling/trading tickets to other flyers.

There were a bunch of these tickets that were evidently sold or attempted to be sold. Those tickets will stand-out like a sore thumb when the UA fraud prevention department completes its review of every ticket issued under this mistake. You can be sure that anybody who booked tickets in the names of other flyers has had their account flagged already. And I would say that anyone who booked more than a few of these is probably done for.

The rest of you probably don't have anything to worry about. Although, as I have pointed out before, they can and do close accounts and confiscate miles for what seem like minor infractions such as hidden-city ticketing and nested itineraries. They seem to have a zero tolerance policy if they think you have sold anything though.

And, of course, they are holding all of the cards with regards to FF miles and don't have to prove anything to terminate you.

chinatraderjmr

UA might have the "right" to do that but it would still be the wrong thing to do if done arbitrarily. 3 kinds of people got in on this. The majority took advantage if a computer error and hoped the tkts would be honored. But they knew the chances were low and have walked away laughing. UA should have no problem w this or these people. (Even the people that are going thru the motions w the DOT, while I don't agree with them, have that right and should not be penalized for it. However, for those intent on not even listening to the DOT if it does not go your way and are already looking at ways to drag UA thru the dirt, UA would be 100% correct in canceling those accounts and asking those "customers" to fly another airline in the future. Those die hards are hell bent on hurting UA any way they can & UA would be within their rights to wash their hands w those people.


Sounds like a GREAT idea for those of you that want to pursue this. Clearly, I am not invited to join and that's fine. But those of you who want to attack everyone on "FT" that does not agree with you, too bad. FT Is a place for different views. If you don't like hearing from people that don't agree w you, this is the wrong place to be. Great idea w this Google thing. You guys can waste your time trying to get UA to honor your tickets without the rest if us bothering you

FYI - your comments about UA employees not being welcome will be very hard to enforce. It's the Internet - its anonymous

zombietooth

UA is actually pretty reasonable about change fees. I just changed an international W-fare ticket for $150-. So the maximum extent of damage that any of you aggrieved flyers can suffer from a single cancellation incident is $150- to $250- depending on the type ticket/itinerary. The maximum loss that UA would suffer from honoring each of these tickets could be many thousands of dollars per incident. So, if the DOT were to rule that the 4-mile bookings would have to be honored, they would be tipping the scales way too far in the favor of flyers.

Especially since most of the whiners here are "low post wonders". It would take the UA fraud prevention department zero effort to infiltrate their party. I hope that none of these bozos actually used the same email address from their FT account for their MP account.

chinatraderjmr

What is "Fuel Dumping"?

FriendlySkies

It would seem unlikely that IB would turn over private contact info for their members to UAL.

zombietooth

Fuel dumping is a way of exploiting the plating agreements between carriers to remove the YQ surcharge by "tricking" the plating carrier on a cheap flight into not collecting the YQ when it issues the ticket for the international carrier. It can be very advantageous on international itineraries where the YQ can be very large. It is very hard to control the fare class when you buy an FD'd ticket, so you can't count on getting an upgradeable fare, because you can't book FD itineraries on .bomb, but have to book on some of the OTAs that allow the exotic bookings that are required to achieve the FD.

They are not interesting to me for actual bookings because you can't buy upgradeable fares, but they are challenging and fun to find because they are like a big treasure hunt/puzzle. There are some people that do it all day long and find incredible glitches in the ORSs of airlines and then post clues so that others can find them in the "Trick it/negotiate it" thread.

ws8n

I don't think they mind having their accounts closed with less than 500 miles in the account

Seriously, what is your intent? To scare off those who have booked tickets from this deal?

Perhaps you should also post in the fuel dump thread as well, and let them know all airlines will be auditing tickets in future to prevent revenue loss.

zombietooth

Nothing scary here, I was merely answering a question.

The active FDers are an incredibly wary and smart bunch, unlike the gaggle that is posting here about suing UA over "breach of contract" issues, etc.

lax2010

If you mess up your booking, UA did allow you to get out of it by canceling your booking within 24-hour; did UA not cancel/cleanup their mess within 24-hour?

I think $mi$eck's problem is that his IT department is so messed up that they don't even know how many 4-mile tickets were issued! If I were $mi$eck, I cancel them all within the 24-hour grace period so that no one can ever complain about "double standard".

allofthelights

That wouldn't be bad publicity.

lax2010

It has been getting so argumental that I stopped follow this for a while!

What are all these talks about UA only allow these tickets to travel through 7/21 or 7/22? Was there some kind of rumor or UA announcement?

Short hair Francis

I was one of those with protected tickets when the UA Insider came out with the Official United Airlines post.
They did honor the tickets as issued for myself as I was already in the air when they came out with their statement.
So those that have begun travel on or prior July 21st should have their tickets protected as I can report mine was.

Others have said they were traveling before to July 21 but haven't started their trip as of the release of that statement on the 19th 8:53pm EDT, I haven't seen any other posting after for that group but they might still be in the air.

Hope that helps

lax2010

Thanks for the info. I found the UA Insider's update posting and now know what was going on.

IMHO, I think picking a future date (I.e., July 21) for making all cancellations is a big mistake.