Wyleeguy79

Wanted to give fair warning on how United handles their own mistakes that result in them cancelling your flight reservations:

On 3/17/13 My wife and I changed reservations on round-trip flights we had to Birmingham, AL on united.com to our wedding. We paid the full $210 in change fees and miles requested during checkout.

We received email confirmations of our flights and they showed up under our united.com accounts.

A few weeks later we received a letter in us mail asking us to call about a negative balance on my wife's united.com account.

When we called in, the agent apologized and explained their had been a glitch when we changed our flights and we were under charged, but that our flights would not be changed/cancelled and we would just have a negative balance going forward.

Today, we logged into our united mileage plus accounts and found that our flights had been cancelled!

I checked my Chase United Explorer Plus card and found that my change fees had NOT been credited.

In addition United has our email and US mail address' and we never received notice of these flights being cancelled. According to United Customer service the flights were cancelled on June 4th.

I called United reservation and Mileage plus, I was told again this was a glitch on their side and my miles have been refunded but that I would have to pay for any replacement flights in full.

This is TOTALLY unacceptable. United has made several major mistakes.

First the technical glitch, I understand these things happen, but raising the price after purchase is sellers remorse and I should not be responsible, since I had already paid for another flight, and paid a flight change charge.

The next mistake was the US mail letter informing me that my Wife's mileage account was at a negative balance and to please call. On the phone the Mileage plus agent told us that our account would have a negative balance going forward and not to worry about our flights they would not be changed or cancelled. If your intent was to cancel our flights you should have told us at that point.

Next on June 4th our flights were cancelled without ANY notification. Our change fees have not been refunded either. This is TERRIBLE customer service. These flights are for our wedding and if I had not happened to log in to check on my flights I might not have noticed until it was too late to re-book.

Lastly, we lost our original flights to Birmingham, If I had been given a total when I made the changes that it would cost an additional 75,000 miles to change my original flights I would have kept those and made other arrangements.

So after spending over 4 hours on the phone with your India based customer service I have been extorted an ADDITIONAL 75,000 miles to make it to my own wedding. United has now treated me very unfairly, and charged me over 100,0000 miles for two round trip DOMESTIC COACH tickets.

United should be ashamed of their customer service. I am being double charged to pay for their mistakes and terrible customer service. United is my nomination for 2013 worst corporation in America for their inability to handle their own mistakes and double charging customers for their United Airlines mistakes.

I've executive carpet bombed them, and submitted to the consumerist.

tom911

I think I would have started with a PM to UA Insider here before making that jump. It might have been something they could have researched and resolved for you.

Often1

OP may feel better, but it won't help him any more. Multiple inputs all get forwarded into the CS database, so it just confuses things.

pigx5

Besides the OP's problem, I see a bigger problem for new UA.
The old UA used to be able to fix this kind of problem from MP/Reservation/CS agents or supervisors.
Now, everything is "there is nothing we can do" unless they know flyertalk and
they know to contact UAInsider.
Why bother to spend money on those agents who can do nothing?
Should they have UAInsider team to replace those CS agents?
OP, I hope you will get a satisfied solution from UAInsider.

dsquared37

The whole escapade appears to have begun when the changes caused a shift from saver to standard awards. It's likely the difference wasn't explained by the CS agent.

Here's to hoping you get this worked out OP.

cfischer

If you have a confirmed ticket you are fine. Just contact the DOT if UA claims technical difficulties and wants more money ... totally unacceptable.

hobo13

You could add Twitter to your list of communication protocols. Sad to say, but others have reported far better success communicating in 144 character blurbs to this company...... draw your own conclusion.

And don't let anyone tell you otherwise -- this is ridiculous. But not surprising in the world of SHARES.

tom911

Looks like UA has recently ramped up on the social media side, going from 2 employees to 20, so maybe that would be worth a try.

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/c...-media.html/2/

I_Can_Fly_US_Airways

IS simply stop flying UA! They went to "hell in a hand basket" when they merged w/CO. Too add insult to injury, Smiley face Smisek has done everything he can to kill a once great airline )-:

tom911

You still need to burn off those UA miles unless you're willing to walk away from them. I had a couple hundred thousand and wasn't willing to go that far. OP of this thread is also trying to burn miles from what I can tell.

aacharya

Such a helpful post. Bitter much?

OP's story seems amiss. $210 in change fees seems very odd for award travel for a non-elite. $150 makes sense. He also notes UA extorted him. Hard to see how. He rebooked voluntarily. There are definitely some CS issues he/she raises... but I don't see why UA is to blame fully. OP didn't have to rebook with them if UA was making him wait four hours and had to use Standard instead of Saver to get there. At that point, I'd just buy the tickets on any airline. 75,000 miles is worth more than $1500.

I'd like to hear more of the story so we can help the OP before piling on UA, as the rests of the posts seem to do.

Often1

If OP wants help, he needs to post the entire st of facts, not starting in the middle with a change. The details matter.

pigx5

Can I apply a job for UAOutsider?
How many of these positions are come to online forum to make debates with other people who complain on internet?

I really think the problem is that they need to empower their employees to solve problem in the first place and stop saying "we make mistakes and there is nothing we can do. You need to pay double for our mistake."

FlyingNut724

To try to give the "appearance" of customer service. Imagine the outrage if you couldn't talk to anyone. Allowing you to talk to someone (even if they can't do anything) gives the appearance (or at least some appearance) that they care.

Wyleeguy79

Thanks for the UA insider suggestion, submitted a case to them.

I purchased a flight using saver miles for my Birmingham flight.

Then I submitted a change requested for 4 legs, and was charged $200 in change fees and no miles.

Then I was contacted me via US mail to tell me my wife had a negative balance. When I called they said it was because of a glitch that I owed more, but I would not need to cover the difference they would carry it forward until I naturally covered it over time.

As others have said, I would have kept my original flight and placed a different reservation for the full amount of miles if I had been told the total additional miles required. This is my primary complaint, on top of not notifying me of the cancellation and not refunding me my change fees.

I would have no problem with cancelling and notifying me if I had not already paid for another flight with miles.