adoniah

A very long-time lurker here for several years finally posting out of extreme frustration with United. I'm not nearly as seasoned as many posters on here, but I've flown United exclusively for as long as I can remember. Never enough to annually gain status, but any time I fly it's with United.

I'm going to CUN for an anniversary trip out of ORD. Originally I booked the cheapest fare through IAH. After booking, the fares on ORD > CUN dropped significantly; I ate the change fees and switched my flights because it was still cheaper and I saw there was upgrade award space. The website was giving me some trouble buying a miles upgrade, so I called MP. The agent said she needed to split my reservation into two separate reservations to apply the upgrades (made no sense to me). By the time this was done, only 1 award seat remained. Frustrated, I told her I would book them online myself, but now the website gave me all kinds of errors when trying to upgrade. I called back, got transferred to web support and when I tried to load the error message, suddenly upgrades for both my wife and I cleared. Confusion ensued, the agent's supervisor disconnected my call after 40 minutes on hold, and then I looked at my credit card statement to see that I had been charged $1100+ by United. After several hours of phone calls United determined that the system had somehow converted a miles upgrade to a revenue buy up. Now they're supposedly sending me a check in the mail for a refund. Ultimately, I booked my wife into first with a miles upgrade.

This brings us to last night, when I called back to clarify a few rules with refunds. I asked the agent "If I put in a miles upgrade and get waitlisted and then decide I just want to buy up, is there any way the co pay can be refunded?". This guy even checked with his supervisor, and after placing me on hold for 20 minutes reported back that as long as I don't clear for the upgrade, and call to cancel before check-in, I am eligible for a full refund of both miles and co-pay. This didn't sound right to me, so I asked again, and he confirmed that this was indeed the rule. So, I waitlisted myself. Tonight, I said forget it, not wanting my wife to sit in first by herself in case I don't clear my upgrade, and called to cancel my miles upgrade and just pay the fare difference. Only this time, the agent explains to me that co-pays are never refundable and that if I pay the fare difference I owe them a $150 change fee, which I find hilarious since I just paid $300 in change fees 2 days ago. I was then connected with a supervisor who was extremely rude and very bluntly told me that, yes, the information I obtained was incorrect, but that she could not refund me the co-pay. I am so infuriated I can't even articulate it...in no other business can you give a customer false information and then expect them to eat the cost. Where is the customer service?! The only reason I waitlisted was because this individual assured me that I'd be refunded everything. And whether the rules state the contrary or not, the fact remains that I was given false information and acted on that false information. In my profession, you're held accountable for that kind of thing and it's a very serious matter.

What are my options? I'm really sorry for the long post, but from the $1100+ erroneous charge to the incorrect refund information, I'm about at the end of my patience with this. Any help is appreciated.

mbarreto

Welcome to FT!

Let me try to summarize (correct me if I'm wrong):

-UA phone agent told you miles and co-pay are refundable at any time

-You then used miles+ co-pay to be put on waitlist

-Then you decided to upfare, and called to get the refund

-Now UA says not-refundable

Correct? My best suggestion is, call again!

trooper

+1 on the call again!!!

..but in relation to the "noone else can give bad info and then have you eat the cost"..

Not true... Look at the (lack of) responsibility your Tax department (and mine) have in regards to advice they give!

bullbearish

Co-pays are refundable when the requested upgrade is not honored. There is a tool for requesting such refunds on the United website. It comes, but takes about 6 to 8 weeks. In the meantime, when I had a similar circumstance, I simultaneously contested the charge on my credit card. The charge was held (as not my liability) until it got sorted out.

craz

Seems you are saying you never cleared and got your miles & $$ refunded. But does that also apply if the passenger themselves decides to get off the WL?

adoniah

@trooper: I hear you on the taxes bit! ^

@craz: I believe that was the issue the agent had: that I was removing myself off the waitlist as opposed to simply not clearing the upgrade and then being refunded.

But here's the continuation of this saga. When I got back online to check my account, I now had three separate ORD > CUN segments listed. One was in U, the other had no booking class, and another in C. At first I thought my upgrade cleared, but not in C. So, I called back, again. They explained to me that the system made an error, again...probably the same error that caused them to charge $1100 to me in error. The agent said she would delete the non-economy segments because the system still had me waitlisted. I stopped her mid-sentence and very sternly explained how upset I was that all these errors had occurred and that ultimately United would need to start showing some sign of good will. After contacting her supervisor for what seemed like an eternity, she responded that her supervisor "also thinks there is something wrong with the system." (as if that wasn't obvious already). But, thankfully this supervisor had some charity in him/her and honored the glitch. My other segments were deleted and I have a confirmed seat in C now.

Has anyone ever had this amount of trouble when a reservation was split? Because none of this was going on before the agent split my reservation in two.

This has been an absolute nightmare of an experience. I know I don't fly nearly as much as some on this forum, but I fly enough to have noticed a gradual decline in United's ability to deliver quality customer service. But this experience is impressive in how ridiculous each event was. $1100 in errant charges, multiple and incorrect booking segments appearing on my reservation, hours on the phone...it's just mind-boggling, but almost unsurprising anymore for United. Just curious if others have had similar problems.

JDS747

Personally, I don't think cutting people off mid-sentence help in a situation like this. That immediately puts the person on the defensive and makes them not want to help you.

Keep in mind when dealing with these types of issues, that the agent you're talking with didn't cause the problem, and they are only trying to help fix it.

It seems like everything is taken care of now and you have your seat in C so all is good, right??

mathgeek1978

I might be wrong but I don't think the PNR should be split for a buyup or award upgrade, in that case, either both pax or neither pax gets upgraded. I am always under the impression that an PNR has to be split only for CPU.

SAN 1K

With anything complicated this airline is like the Wild West. Survival of the fittest. Rampant inconsistency. The policies aren't clearly established. And on top of that lies an absurd IT platform that doesn't help clarify anything for the employees who have to deal with these issues.

skimthetrees

Co-pays are refundable anytime according to United on this page: http://www.united.com/web/en-US/cont...grade/mua.aspx

Expand the "MileagePlus Upgrade Award rules" section and you'll see:

The co-pay is automatically refunded if you don't clear but you can also cancel your MileagePlus Upgrade Award and get a refund minus a redeposit fee.

wwu123

I believe the bolded statement is referring to canceling an upgrade that has cleared. If you request to be taken off the waitlist, which is different, I believe you're entitled to your refund all the same and no redeposit fee - is that correct?

skimthetrees

I've never done it so I don't know. I would hope so.

Steve M

(Coming into this thread late as I'm now in a similar situation and found this via search)

To answer the above question, I'd say that's NOT correct. That is, once the miles have been pulled from your account and you pay the co-pay, you have to pay the redeposit fee if you voluntarily cancel the upgrade or upgrade request, regardless of whether or not it's cleared. The only time the fee is not applicable is if you end up flying the flight without the upgrade clearing - then you get everything back fee-free. Also, Platinum and 1K's have no re-deposit fee for any award.

Another thing that can be done is to cancel the flight and the upgrade request (whether or not you've cleared) and leave everything on the PNR: the ticket value, the miles for the upgrade, and the co-pays. Then, if you have the same PNR reissued for another ticket to the same destination (or at least one in the same upgrade zone), then upon paying the change fee for the fare (if applicable), you can re-apply the upgrade request and co-pay without additional fees for that. If the co-pay goes up, then you pay the difference. If the co-pay goes down, then you can either eat the difference, or pay the re-deposit fee and get the difference back.

Not true, at least in the US at the federal level. Because of several complaints about this, it's now the law that if the IRS gives you tax advice that you rely on and ends up being incorrect, you are not liable for any interest or penalties that accrue as a result (you still have to pay the correct tax due, as that would have been due even if they didn't give you bad advice). The advice must a) be in writing (so that you don't get into a "he said, she said" dispute), and b) must be addressed specifically to you (that is, you can't rely on an advice letter sent to another taxpayer even if you have a similar situation). But assuming both of those are true, IRS now takes responsibility for bad advice they give out. Several US states have passed similar laws.

It looks like the OP never came back to FT for this thread or any other, so we don't know how it turned out. I hope it had a happy ending. When the co-pay rules were first introduced to pmCO, there was a "no refund" policy, but that was changed at some point. It sounds like the agents that he spoke to that were being difficult about the refund had outdated information. Hopefully the OP saw the T&C's posted here and was able to quote them to whomever he spoke with next.

mitchellh

Ah yes. I had a very similar situation. It isn't identical (that would be insane), but similar enough that I think it warrants telling.

My situation, in a nutshell:

- Booked 2 tickets (single PNR) in W-class (economy)
- Waitlisted upgrade with miles + co-pay
- T-24 our PNR is suddenly split into two. Functionally, it didn't affect anything so I didn't say anything.
- No R space showing and we got a nice TOD offer at check-in, so I took it, upgraded us both (two different tickets now, remember). I did this after checking with both the gate agent AND call agent that my co-pay would be refunded for buying up.
- At our layover at ORD, I'm informed I've been upgraded to Global First, and my girlfriend has been DOWNGRADED to economy. What??? This is where it starts to get bad.
- They can't fix the ticket, so they reconstruct a new ticket. This is a key problem. Ultimately, girlfriend and I get into BizFirst together. Good enough.
- I'll skip the return flight, it had its own share of weirdness.

FINALLY:

Weeks go buy and my co-pay isn't refunded. I call 1K line, am told I can only deal with this online through refunds. I file a refund. It is rejected.

This continues as I fill 4 refunds simultaneously for the SAME refund with the SAME WORDING, hoping that eventually some different person will see it and accept it. I do this weekly, since it is about 4 or 5 biz days before they respond.

Lo and behold: 15 weeks and 60 IDENTICAL (all rejected) refund submissions later, one gets accepted. Hilarious. It is identical to the other 59ish that got rejected.

Anyways, eventually got my money.

But hell if I'll ever do that again.

Steve M

Very interesting. So, you buy the TOD before your upgrade clears, but your waitlist request for miles+copay is still pending. A First seat opens up, and the computer upgrades you into it based on the outstanding upgrade request. I never considered that situation, and it could only happen on a 3-cabin aircraft.


Ug. Once a PNR gets beyond a certain level of complexity and problems, especially if related to another one, resolving problems can become very difficult. I feel your pain - been there, done that.