transparent

Booked a few mileage runs to try and lock in status for next year (I know, with the devals... but I'm too close to ignore), and I admit, it looks a little crazy. A couple back-to-backs on the same route. And I got a pretty good fare too.

Had an issue with one of the flights that I noticed only a few hours after the 24 hour cut-off, and called in hoping I could get a sympathetic agent. (I mis-read the date since the flight left late night, and needed it on the next day than the one I booked) I don't make a habit of this, and in the past, asking nicely (or a couple HUCA) have worked out, fortunately.

This time, was getting nowhere after a few HUCAs, I asked for a supervisor to plead my case. Perhaps I've been lucky, but for the most part, I've never encountered outright hostility on the phone. Maybe clueless, or misinformed. This time, I sensed underlying hostility, and I called the supervisor out on it. I asked him why the hostility, and whether it was affecting his willingness to help.

Then he said, "What you're doing is not right." When I pressed for clarification, he asked me point blank, "You are doing this for miles, right? To make status?" And I noted that I've been a loyal UA flyer, even taking connections and going out of my way (in the past) to fly UA. He then basically said that I was cheating UA for taking such a cheap fare and I was in no way loyal and wouldn't help. I told him I didn't think my reasons for flying were relevant, and I just HUCA (was lucky enough to get it through this time).

Strange that a CS supervisor would even care... and that it would affect the kind of service provided. Anyone else ever experience this? Maybe more evidence of what UA management thinks of its customers.

skipmnyc

Maybe the company doesn't want your money?

Doc Savage

How dare you pay money to fly on their planes!!

eng3

Yeah, how dare you take a cheap fare . I guess UA expects you to ignore low fares and wait for fares to go up before booking, or always book Y in order to be considered loyal. I guess this won't matter as much next year.

Eastbay1K

The simple fact is that if UA didn't want you to be able to purchase this non-mistake fare with your particular routing, it should not have offered it.

zcat18

So a hypothetical copier repairman on the exact same set of itineraries as the OP being paid by his employer to do 20 minutes of copier repair at each airport is somehow "more right" than the OP, who is paying the exact same money to take the exact same flights as an MR? That's absurd. Sounds like you got a confrontational (not to mention dumb) CS supervisor.

xliioper

Well, it's also possible there was a substantial fare difference between the flights. If OP was asking to waive both a change fee and a fare difference, I could understand some hostility. Did OP verify it was the same fare for the next day?

mherdeg

Well, look, you were asking for a favor here. "I know your rules say you need to charge me money to refund this trip, but please don't charge me the money."

If you're burning CS rep time & karma on a trip that seems particularly pointless — filling a seat and traveling at hundreds of times the speeds humans were meant to travel for no reason except that you get invisible "points" after the journey — I can see why someone would be upset when they have "real passengers" with "real problems" to attend to.

This is no excuse for an agent to be mean or rude; life is short and people ought to be kind to one another in the dwindling hours that remain of our grim sojourn into a final darkness. But, why let it get to you? After all, UA is trying to extract maximum value from its customers and it's only fair play for its customers to try to extract maximum value from them. Given that you *know* you are playing a benefit-maximizing game which is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike actual travel — you need to have a thick skin, treat the situation as though it did not happen, politely thank the agent for their time and move on.

Another way to put this — if you're booking a "mileage run", you ought to have no ego to bruise. Under the circumstances you're acting as a rational, narrowly self interested simulcarum of a person ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_economicus ), and not as a truly "loyal" traveler who should care about things like courtesy or professionalism. Get your miles & get out.

bob_the_d

i guess it's weird because why would you be mad at someone purchasing a published fare? it's not like the OP cheated or did anything out of the ordinary. a price was available for a seat and someone bought it.

and i guess i mean i can understand if the agent doesn't want to change the reservation for free. it's technically following the rules and while it can be obnoxious under some circumstances (such as this), at the end of the day rules are rules and an agent can always point to that.

the lecture and scolding was pretty gratuitous though. as long as the OP was polite about it, all the agent really has to say is "i'm sorry, under the fare rules we cannot change it for free" or something along those lines. the fact that the agent felt the need to go and give his opinion to a paying customer is pretty stupid. that is an example of poor customer service.

Kacee

The hostility by a CSR is of course never warranted.

But let's not lose sight of the fact that OP, an experienced UA flyer, made multiple HUACA attempts to make a fee-free change after the 24 hour deadline, including escalating to a supervisor. I can understand why a CSR might have found this annoying.

roadkit

I always find it amazing that people -- whether UA CS or fellow FTer's -- seem to have this attitude.

If UA does not want people making MRs to make status, then don't offer these fares!

If anyone is "Not doing something right" it's UA.

What a bunch of Tossers.

Madone59

They put the product on the open market, at a price. What does a CS rep, or anyone else at UA care who buys the product and in what quantity, and or for what reason(s).

Agreed Roadkit. This is ridiculous It would be like Snapple scolding you for buying to many bottles in search for all of the funny facts under the cap.

Condition One

I had a CSR yesterday who railed against "too many premiers" and if it were up to him, he'd cut the number down significantly. He insisted on routing me on UA metal using standard awards. When I gave him the flights I wanted and he deducted the miles, he condescendingly said "you *barely* have the miles for this trip!", as if burning the last of my miles (1,200 left in my account) would cause my family to go hungry. It was a complex award reservation, so I held my tongue.

Often1

1. Rude behavior is never justified. By customers or by employees. Ever.

2. UA appears to have upped its game and is better documenting the phone bankers (HUCA). Thus, the supervisor could see that this wasn't a simple escalation.

3. While MR's are perfectly within the COC, they are not the business any carrier wants to actively encourage.

So, for reasons 2 & 3, the answer is "no" as a matter of the supervisor's discretion.

GoAmtrak

That's a sweeping conclusion which seems quite dismissive of the nuances discussed ad nauseum in the many threads debating whether UA or other carriers do (or should) value MR business to incrementally fill seats. It's an open question and frankly not one that you or anyone here can claim to answer with a definitive single-sentence statement.

That said, OP should indeed feel lucky at having had the rules bent (as tasteless, misguided, and unwarranted as the sup's comment was).