BearX220

What is the mechanism for refunds when this happens?

UA-NYC

Go to the Refunds part of the UA site and fill it out. Got notice on ours after 7-10 days.

dcpdxtrans

The return was a much different story. Had wifi as soon as we crossed the border (&the FAs in F with great)

Weyland Yutani Corp

UA 871 SFO>TPE on 12/9 didn't work, as announced by fa before takeoff. UA 872 TPE>SFO on 12/19 worked entire flight for $17.

CMH1k

IAH to ORD last week it did not work at all. No one in cabin could get connected.

lensman

There are a lot of areas where T-Mobile is doing the right things to make the best of their 4th place spot in the U.S. mobile market. I would be with them if I didn't have some "inertial" factors keeping me with AT&T. As a consumer, it's Verizon vs T-Mobile for me. This is entirely based on my opinion and emotion.

I had no problem with switching devices on my EWR-SFO flight. Connectivity was good with only one interruption causing me to have to reconnect my corporate VPN. Obviously I had to reconnect every time I switched devices - got the "you've been disconnected because you've connected on a different device" notice.

What did the system say when it wouldn't allow you to switch?

I bought the $2 an hour level. Service was, in fact, blazingly fast at about 22 mbps down and 1 mbps up. It was a lifesaver for this flight because there was some last-minute work that I found out I *had* to do on the flight that required collaboration with colleagues back in the office.

Hey, nothing is better than finishing up some work over fast satellite internet while sipping your morning coffee and watching ST:TNG reruns while at 35,000 feet on your way to Hawaii in the middle of December. Well, maybe it's better to be posting to FT while *in* Hawaii in late December. Well, I admit there are some "better" opportunities here but I don't want to make people too jealous. lol

CMRrocks

UA 566 PIT->SFO December, 2014

Wifi worked ok (used Surface Pro 3, did not try to change devices) with the exception of several 3-5 minute disconnects during the 1st half of flight (Gave UA "feedback" on Wifi survey, but did not ask for refund).

Vulcan

Now. Download is 25 and upload is 2. Probably because of the holidays. Very useable.

FlyWorld

SFO-HNL

I think it was a new satellite technology- not gogo.

Far from perfect but surprisingly fast and reliable. Overall, I was happy with it.

sbm12

Those speeds are typical of the 737s using the Thales/LiveTV/ViaSat solution. They are not special just for the holidays.

Seat1A

best failure mode ever on today's BOS-IAH. it worked for about a minute, and after that, every website (including united.com) i tried to access redirected to the unitedwifi.com page. except delta.com, which worked perfectly.

lcatfishl

Was on UA83 on Friday (12/19) DEL - EWR. Cost around $17 and worked great throughout. Was able to watch some videos and play Hearthstone on my iPad.

I did sleep about 4 hours of the 15 hour flight though. But on the times I was using it, the speed was great.

Oeste

Back in November, I took two flights on the same PNR (open jaw). On both of them, the WiFi didn't work, but it kept asking me to try again. I did try again - 4 times on the first flight and 2 times on the second.

Of course, it still didn’t work, and I ended up being charged each time. I submitted refund requests, and waited for the usual refund for bad in-flight WiFi.

A couple weeks in, I received one refund (for one of six) credited to my card. Then two e-mails asking for my credit card statements, and one that appeared to be an internal e-mail not having anything to do with me. Of course, none of them showed up on the check status site anymore.


I called United Premier Desk. After three passes to other departments, I was told to respond to those two that I got with my statement and it’d be taken care of. Satisfied, I meticulously filtered my statement and blurred out other transactions, then sent it in response.

The address that it was sent from didn’t accept inbound e-mails. Of course, this led to another Premier Desk call, where I insisted that I not be transferred. After 20 minutes of investigation, it was discovered that at least 3 of them were denied due to a missing ‘016’ ticket number, even though they had my MP number, WiFi receipt number, PNR, flight number, and dates. I was advised to resubmit as a single request, which I did.

I’ve now 6 weeks past my initial flight, 2 weeks past my last contact, and I’ve spent 2 hours trying to resolve a grand total of $12 in bad charges. As a customer who does more than $10,000 in PQD spend annually with United, I’m shocked at how much of an issue this is.

What is my next step? Do I write a physical letter? Initiate a chargeback? How long do I have to do that? I actually have no clue. Has anyone had experiences like this in the past?

(Yes, I know that it’s not actually worth the time I’ve spent on it to get $12 back. But now it’s a matter of principle.)

mherdeg

Oh, my sweet summer child.

Well, a credit card chargeback may work. "United double billed me for wifi on this flight and refused to refund it" is a fair enough reason for a chargeback. Time window depends on your issuer.

A Department of Transportation consumer complaint will also do the trick , http://www.dot.gov/airconsumer/file-consumer-complaint . Keep the facts succinct and include enough info to identify the relevant charges (flight numbers, ticket numbers, etc.). You'll get a response from corporate headquarters within a week.

You can also wait it out and hope UA eventually does the right thing; or call customer relations with your sad story and they may give you a voucher on the spot for more than your out-of-pocket costs.

The DOT complaint route may help ensure that others don't face similar problems in the future.

Often1

1. This is not a "horror story". Nobody got hurt or died.

2. Why waste your time? You submitted the claims, the refunds haven't been paid and you should initiate a CC chargeback. Remember that while some CC's allow longer periods, the law only requires 60 days from the date the service ought to have been rendered. Depending on when, you may be bumping up against that.

3. A DOT complaint is a waste of your time. See #2.

Generally speaking, make one attempt at the refund or whatever it is and then use the chargeback route. That's what it's there for, to prevent a waste of time on both sides.