Hipplewm

I just looked at 3 certs, 2 hand and one email. All 3 clearly say NON-Transferable and may not be sold or bartered in capital letters extremely clearly.

I am sorry for your loss, but not sorry you got caught as this kind of action hurts us all.

danielonn

I am sorry but United clearly states in their Terms and Conditions what constitutes as fair use of your certificates. Whether you knowingly or unknowingly put your certificates up for sale you are still responsible for the consequences.

Is $125 really worth loosing 600,000 miles, 1K Status and Upgrades? To me $125 is paperweight and if I can use the certificate fine if not then I just move on. You don't have a leg to stand on and just learned a very important lesson the hard way. It makes no difference that you rescinded your EBAY posting the security team took a screenshot and proceeded to follow through with closing the account. United could have taken you to court as you wrongfully tried to barter a certificate and transfer it to another person.

By them closing your account its like shoplifting from Costco they can close your membership temporarily or permanently and can ask for civil restitution. The OP spent way more than $125 for his flights to become 1K.

Just imagine if the OP sold a certificate worth $1000? United is using the OP as an example to show that they mean business. Honestly by the OP coming on FlyerTalk where we know that the selling of certificates is against the Terms and Conditions of the airline we can validate that United and other airlines can and does close frequent flier accounts.

Lets make this a lesson to others so that we don't have other people's accounts closed as a result of violating the T&C. Side note OP is a long time UA flier but a new FT poster.

I would wait at least 6 months and write United a letter to see if they will reinstate your account. Until then purchase tickets using the same Credit Card, do not enter in any Frequent Flier Number and see if security will reinstate your ticket.

If the OP had TSA Pre Check or Global Entry do you think United would have reported it to those agencies and the OP could lose that too?

ermintrude

Tricky one. PM sent to OP on IMO best way to proceed (I've effected reinstatement of a GS friend). I advise not contacting UA Insider. Depending on the transgression, to a certain extent it depends on:

Kacee

Upgrade certificates (RPU, GPU) and e-certs (TCVA) are most certainly transferable. They just cannot be transferred for consideration (sold or bartered).

mduell

Yea, they take their program rules very seriously (at least when they're against you), and apparently you don't.

Head to greener pastures, pay attention to their rules, and don't look back.

Lori_Q

Agreed. Groveling and contrition are your best strategies now. The person who addresses your case at Mileage Plus will be able to see from your account activity that you are a high-value customer. It won't be necessary for you to remind them.

I'm sure it seems unreasonable for United to react so strongly to such a small infraction of their rules. They are a service company, and we come to trust that "service" means "taking care of customers on the customer's terms." But they are trying to fight the large and pervasive problem of people reselling their instruments. They don't have much choice but to deal with all such infractions in the same manner.

Humility costs nothing. There is much to gain by doing all you can to make them believe you value their service and respect their rules.

DesertNomad

While I side generally with United here, the airline could put a stop to this immediately if they would make these certificates useless to anyone other than the person it was issued to or someone traveling on the same itinerary with them.

They would save a bunch of money by not having to police this.

ani90

I would disagree. As stated above this matter is for those who deal with fraud detection and security, they likely do not differentiate one passenger from another (or they would not have shut down OPs account in same way they would have shut down a MP silver member who did same). As said there is zero tolerance.

However, when it comes to reinstatement, there will almost certainly be discretion. If you go groveling and apologizing, your letter ends up likely in the groveling and apologizing pile and there will be a standard reply to such letters. The person who reads your email may not even handle it further other than standard reply. However, if you pointed out that you control a company that purchases 50 million USD of tickets a year from UA or maybe that your spouse regularly clocks 800 K BIS miles in premium cabin every year, then I bet you will get different attention and your request will be forwarded up the chain.

mahasamatman

That would massively devalue the certificates.

DELee

As one who was gifted an upgrade via a 1K's CR-1 on LAX-JFK p.s. back in the day and as someone who now can gift RPUs and GPUs to my family and friends (and hope that they get upgraded), I think this is not the goodest idea.

David

p.s. and if I really want them back, I could gift them to nomad420 and always be guaranteed to be re-deposited

DesertNomad

Then they could work like UA employee travel where the receiver of the certificate can designate some number of people each year to use their certificates. Wasting resources by having United cops patrol ebay makes no sense.

Hipplewm

Nope, I just read it again, it does say it can be used by the person it was issued to, to buy a ticket for someone else, but it can not be transferred. Also if you use it for someone else, there can be no remuneration.

fumje

Are you referring to an e-cert? Or do you somehow have a paper SWU?

bigboy61

From a business perspective, this seems like a losing proposition for United. Is making a statement to one person about a $125 voucher worth losing tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars (assuming the OP quit flying United)???

mahasamatman

If you have to come up with the list, it would be of little value to most people. And if you can come up with the list on the fly, it would be no different than the status quo.

From United's perspective, yes. Otherwise, the rules are meaningless.