OMG, the sky is going to fall and we are all going to die! :D

In other news the value of a paper SWU for use on LH valid till end of Feb 2014 just fell to a miserly 250$ in equivalent UA vouchers. Thats the lowest I have seen it this time of the year... they used to be trading for an equivalent of 650$ :D:p Good times.

Excellent news! I will have to try that myself later and will post back the result.
Does this apply UA MUC-ORD-YVR vs LH MUC-FRA-YVR? Or LH via MEX to Central/South America, vs UA to IAH and on to Central/South America? Does UA still earn the revenue on those type of flights?

One could argue (this one could easily argue) that being 1K or *A top tier brings one far less in France than in Germany. But if one is flying quite a bit to/through the US, then the 1K status makes the misery that is flying in the US somewhat bearable. I cannot imagine what my experiences would be like without 1K status in the US.

Again, generally subject for a different thread, but for those of us who fly enough in a year to earn high/top tier status on multiple carriers, all of this including the ease of use of the GPUs is a consideration.

Good luck! I called the German hotline (chosing German as the language option) and they forwarded me to the *A desk and they forwarded me to the US Premier desk.

My result:

:mad: + :)

Called MP Service centre, and before I could even finish my request to have 'two GPUs for use on LH sent to me' she launched into a spiel about how they now require a fixed itinerary and could no longer send 'blank' certs.

I advised her that actually this new policy goes into place effective 01.March. After some sighs and huffs and puffs (and apparent reading of the policy on her side) she asked me to confirm my address :) I did and she said 'huh?' I tried to explain that my address on file is where I need the certs couriered, but that in past they don't seem to be sent to the address on file. After several minutes of 'making changes to my profile' to apparently update the address on her side to the one which shows in my profile on my side, she said that they will be couriered to my 'new' address on file.

So, Step 1 successfully completed, albeit it with some challenges. It's clear that she had been briefed, but not on the new start date. Step 2 is to see if the certs actually arrive, and at which address... Thanks cas_de for the encouragement, and I suggest that anyone else who was denied try, try again.

UA Insider, may I suggest that you ensure that your team members are providing your customers with the correct information in regards to this policy, as you have stated the policy in your first post? Thank you.

Called MP. At first told the same thing...no they received an email with the new policy the other day and this info is now required. The agent held firm until I asked to speak to a Supervisor so I could express my displeasure at these new rules. After being on hold a while the agent came back and said, "the policy doesn't start until March 1, so I can go ahead and issue certs for you now. How many would you like?"

So yes, please try, try again, until you get the certs you want issued before March 1.

Hopefully we won't see LH start to deny the use of these because the cert is missing the required info as THEY were told post March 1!

Good luck fellow FTers.

Tried. Told, no, the rule is in effect now. <sigh>

Try, try again! (I'm going to be optimistic for you to eventually reach the 'right' person, even if I had similar experiences with extending a GPU when other FTers were able to do so and I was not...)

Good luck!

(But I do have to wonder as well how LH will handle our 'blank' certs post 01.March, especially in some of the more particular stations such as in India)

Yes they do. UA/LH/AC/SN/OS/LX revenue share on everything across the atlantic. UA sets the fares and seat revenue management on eastbound seats, LH on westbound seats. The first steps they started 13 years ago were written about here: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...sa-partnership

So then I suppose where this may come into play (very rarely) impacting UA's revenue if one is in 'the middle' and has to decide if to fly UA one direction or LH in the other ie eastbound vs westbound.

That seems like a very low instance of occurring, so probably not much impact on UA's revenue by making this change, if it drives customers from LH metal to UA metal.

Very interesting. That explains why I never seem to find much variation in fares across *A airlines when looking at SFO-Europe.

Why does the Justice Department allow this?

Not only US, but Canada and Europe agreed to this.

Applies to DL/KLM/AF and AA/BA most recently IIRC.

EmailKid

No, as UA sets the availability for all LH metal departures ex USA thru their RM and vv. LH has a few employees sitting in UA HQ to resolve any issues that may arise or if a fare needs adjusting/matching etc.

This is completely outrageous and customer-unfriendly. Probably the worst "enhancement" of Mileage Plus in years for me.

I live outside the U.S., and spend probably half of my GPUs per year upgrading LH Y->J or J->F, usually with tickets bought not that far in advance, so there will be no practical way for me to use these on LH anymore. Either the people behind this stupid change don't have a good understanding of how passengers use them -- I generally carry one paper certificate with me, use it when it's convenient, and then request another one by mail -- or else, more likely, is explicitly designed as a barrier to using them on LH.

Great point. The logic of this change is incomprehensibly stupid.

+1 on all points. UA should be ashamed of this gobbledy-gook explanation. If the issue is truly to prevent trading of certs on a secondary market, then an obvious solution would be just to pre-print the name of the traveler on the cert. I could live with that.

If the issue is some other accounting problem, then why not just eliminate the paper certs and do it electronically, same as when applying a GPU to a UA flight? All of UA's explanation seems bogus to me.

+1, though it's possible that people in UA don't really have an understanding of how we use them. The system is archaic anyway, and I suppose I have been expecting the LH benefit to be eliminated eventually. This gets us 75% of the way there.

Another outrage. My first thought when reading this thread was to liquidate most of my SWUs too; I will try. Although a previous poster made a good point that a traveler trying to redeem a "blank" certificate on LH post-03/01 might run into difficulty.

Just called in as well and was asked. Its for an upcoming flight, so didn't worry about fighting it, but process made sense.

The MP phone agents are just filling out a request (there's at least one level of indirection before it issues), so even where PNR details are being requested prior to Mar1, it wouldn't be a surprise if those came back as generic paper certs.

(Still waiting to see if I can get a LH agent at SFO to process a GPU for the connecting flight in FRA even if departing on UA...)

Agreed. Requiring pax name would be entirely reasonable to address fraud.

One pro-UA angle is this helps them keep us over entitled by having direct evidence of how rarely LH SWU's clear.

Whether that or some other accounting enabled by this, it occurred to me the biggest piece of detail they -should- be asking is fare class (e.g. the potential "lost" rev (from paid fares) on J-F is nearly nil compared to Y-J). I can't think of a good report coming from the additional detail without this dimension...

How about UA joins the modern world and make the whole process electronic! I know it's a revolutionary suggestion for UA to contemplate...