philipl6869

Hello, I'm wondering if anyone else has had the experience where the new United system eats their available mileage balance vs the miles they have actually earned?
I've been going back and forth with multiple internal United employees and they agree there is an error but every time they fix it the new "system" eats my miles. The error has reduced my balance by 250K miles, thus I'd like guidance on who I should work with at United if someone else has run into this and got it fixed.

Thanks in advance,

Phil

WineCountryUA

Welcome to FT!, philipl6869
Unfortunately I do not understand what you are asking about. There is too little provided information to even begin guessing on what is happening -- but there have been no widespread reports of problems, so this may be an unique situation.

What "new" part of the system is creating this problem?

Can you provide a detailed example, even if hypothetical?
Including how the miles were earned and what the correct posting should be. And then what is actually posting?

Has this occur in just one instances and those attempts to correct it?
Or has it occurred in other unrelated instances?

Generally, any mileage posting issue should be taken up with a MileagePlus Service Center and not the regular reservation agents.

Ultimately the answer maybe to write a letter (or email) to United with all of the above information.

philipl6869

I booked an award trip online using 252K miles (2 bus seats) for a roundtrip to Munich - United flights operated by Lufthansa. There were changes in the itinerary multiple times all the way to the end when Lufthansa went on strike and we ended up flying on United first leg a day late, and Lufthansa back. Due to the changes United erroneously double billed me for the trip. I escalated over 12 times with them fixing the account by reinstating the miles only to have the "new system" (their term) review and remove the fix. After finally getting to an audit team member 4 months later they have now fixed the transaction and it shows the correct deduction. The problem is I'm still short the 252K miles and I can literally add up the miles on the United mileageplus account page to show the difference (650K vs 400K). My last update from United was the balance is correct (it's not and I can show it!) and an executive would be reaching out. That was 2 weeks ago, after a 4 week review with the Audit team that was supposed to take 3 business days.

Again any guidance on how to escalate this would be appreciated. As a 1K living in Chicago it would be very easy to call American up and get a challenge and just switch however I'll cross over 1M this year at United so if could be fixed I'd like to try.

Bradley Charles

Phil,
I would recommend a United Executive Email Carpet Bomb. Clearly detail the timeline and provide evidence that your claims are correct. You will probably have this issue resolved within a day or two.

TerryK

Seriously?

philipl6869

So I have sent Multiple emails to Mileage Plus management, the people that were working with me on the audit, and management in customer care. Now I get no response, I'm going to try again to go through 1kvoice, but after this I think I'm going to have to send emails to all the execs and see if someone will at least acknowledge the issue.

I'm almost thinking of calling American and asking what they will do to match my existing mile status (800k+ miles and 1K).. As a loyal 1K for 20 years this is a joke, any other guidance appreciated?

Manospeed

Phil,

I would complain very publicly on United's Facebook page. That usually will get their attention.

transportprof

It sounds to me like you might have booked two sets of tickets on frequent flier miles and only used parts of each booking. In that case, United might think you did burn more miles than you see yourself having used. They see two partly used tickets that should cost 2 x the miles you spent on the first ticket, and you see one round trip that should only cost the miles that you spent on the first ticket.

My question is why did you use any more miles to deal with the Lufty strike? LH should have re-accommodated you during the strike on the same ticket, even with another carrier, and there would have been no need to take any more miles from your account. You may have made a strategic error trying to deal with United on this, rather than Lufthansa.

prometa

Recently, I was IRROPed into a free SDC on an award ticket and, once I made the change, the system billed me for a new ticket and put my MP balance into the negative. Fortunately, United customer care fixed the issue after the ticketing agents told me I had to talk to mileage plus customer service, and mileage plus told me I had to talk to ticketing.

Point being, sometimes even the "correct" use of system doesn't prevent getting bitten.

mark2040

I too had several issues with Mileage Plus not crediting me the difference in miles when I changed an award ticket. One issue took 4 months to resolve. The customer service agent mentioned that there is a problem with the system. Apparently it is still not fixed as I just had another issue. I originally booked a roundtrip for 95,000 miles from IAD-LHR. When I noticed that an additional saver award in business became available, I rebooked for 87,500 miles. That was two weeks ago and I still have not seen the 7,500 difference credited back to my account. I have already escalated twice, but I assume that it is going to take me a few more months to resolve.

philipl6869

I got it Fixed, took me over 8 months!! I took the email that Munoz sent out to the mileage plus customers and responded with an email explaining its no surprise that they had incidents on their planes. Considering how they steal miles from loyal customer why not bloody a passenger that isn't profitable. I then detailed my issue laying out the 250k discrepancy. Within a day I got a response from someone in executive relations and then a week later it was fixed and they acknowledged the error and apologized for glitches and system errors. Hours and hours of work to fix their mistake...

ermintrude

Glad you got it sorted and surprised UA wasn't more responsive. I've noticed that sometimes award miles even on UA metal don't redeposit. I'm probably missing some miles but now keep a closer eye than I used to after a few 'refunds' didn't redeposit (I eventually tracked them down). I would notice 250K miles missing though! I keep 500K as a reserve and somewhat freely burn anything over.

skimthetrees

I had a recent experience in the last couple of months where an award I cancelled online did not have the miles automatically credited back to my account. The award had gone through a couple of changes along the way and I suspect this was too much for the automated system to handle although it had no trouble charging me the fee to refund the miles the miles were not auto-refunded. A short call to Mileage Plus and they were able to fix the problem. The system did not work right but they were able to fix the problem when it was brought to their attention. It would be better if they could actually fix the system so minor problems like mine and major ones like the OP's do not occur.

Kmxu

little bit OT. I had trouble getting my flight credit because the tickets were changed several times, including re-installment of ticket after being mistaken for "no show" by gate agent. Called MP and an agent put a request in for the missing flight credit. The system returned "$0 PQD, 370 RDM." I had to call second time. This agent sorted out the messy reservation. She just used the ticket price minus PQDs of other credited flights. I was only $2 PQD short of that I was entitled to. That is okay.