Carter29072

I don't understand why they charged him miles and points to fix the ticket to get them on the later flight but I guess he thought at the time that was reasonable. He just wanted to resolve the problem and get on with their trip. To answer your question, the were flying United coach. I am not sure how may miles they paid for the original tickets.

I really appreciate everyones opinions and advice. I really hope and pray that United does the right thing and if they don't, that Chase does, like you said.

Imstevek

I have a stupid question - if you missed your first flight to London and decide to call from the airport instead of dealing with it in person, aren't you going to have enough time to reconcile with an agent in person before your next flight is scheduled?

This story isn't fully passing the sniff test, either.

Carter29072

Read the post! The airport agent could not reissue the ticket and told him it had to be handled by a customer service agent since it involved a name change.

Thank you! This was my first advise to him. I told him that if he didn't approve the charge, they would have to credit the $4800. I would think that United and most airlines record all phone calls.

Imstevek

Hold on a minute - he spoke to someone at the airport before calling United?

The agent a) purchased 130k miles and b) assigned 70k of them on his/her own, separately from the change fee?

I would file a complaint with chase first - its separate from the change (charged correctly) fee on the CC.

Kevin AA

Even for a straightforward chargeback, 3 weeks is not very long. Be patient.

sbm12

Yup...when completing an award booking, just like on the website, the agent will process the mileage purchase.

Often1

I believe that the merchant --- UA in this case --- has 45 days to respond to the chargeback dispute.

There should be no prejudice to OP's son from the wait because there is an immediate temporary credit which effectively ends the accumulation of interest and replaces credit limit.

There is no reason to do anything else and doing anything else may well have a negative impact because it's possible that UA dropped the ball. If UA does not respond within 45 days, the temporary credit becomes permanent. Why kick the sleeping dog?

jsloan

OK. Coach awards from North America to Europe are 30K miles per ticket, each way, for saver or partner, and 65K miles each way for standard.

130K is exactly enough for two one-way standard awards
70K is exactly the difference between two one-way saver awards and two one-way standard awards.

As for the $242 -- that sounds like the cost for a one-way, non-stop award ticket from LHR to the US, including a $75 close-in booking fee. The taxes on that route are $167.26 at UA's current exchange rate -- plus the $75 is $242.26. The cost of an award ticket from the US to LHR is $5.60 (plus the $75).

I have tried three times, but I cannot conceive of a way to make all of this make sense. The pricing sounds like what it would have cost to buy a new roundtrip ticket, but the 130K sounds like the mileage cost just for the outbound. But if the agent was initiating a change, rather than issuing a new ticket, they should have been using the award change fee chart ($125) instead of the new booking chart, and the system shouldn't have collected the taxes because they'd already been paid. The 70K net debit from the account sounds like they sold him standard awards, and the 130K could be the price of the outbound tickets before redepositing the original saver awards -- but whenever I get the 'you need to buy miles to book this award' screen, it only tries to sell me the difference between my account balance and the award -- so, again, I can't fathom why it would have bought 130K miles.

And none of this leads to 10K miles per ticket. The best that I can come up with is 10K is the difference between the total paid for two saver tickets originally (120K) and the cost of two one-way standard awards (130K). But even if the agent had somehow made that calculation, that's 5K per ticket, not 10K per ticket.

The really frustrating thing is that this kind of simple name change (misspellings, name changes due to marriage / divorce) is common and I'd expect UA to handle it at no charge. This should have been as simple as the ticket agent reissuing the ticket, provided that your daughter-in-law had IDs in both names.

Please keep the board posted on the outcome. This is a great way for an airline to lose two customers for life. :-(

CaptainMiles

These numbers may make some sense.

Names changes are not allowed. Therefore, the only solution for the Mrs. is to refund the existing ticket and buy a new one under the new name. Redeposit costs $125 fee. Buying a new ticket is $75 close in fee + $25 phone agent fee. We're at $225 already. The additional $17 could be a difference in taxes, probably mostly due to fluctuation of GBP exchange rates affecting the UK taxes, which are set in GBP. Perhaps when they bought the original tickets exchange rate was such that the UK taxes came out to $150, but are now $167. So that would explain the $242 per ticket. Looking at the original e-ticket receipts and comparing to the new ones should clarify this.

Now... canceling and buying new would probably not be needed of the Mr.. but because they were in one PNR a rookie agent would apply the same recipe to both instead of splitting the pax into two PNRs and handling each separately.

The $4800, if truly $4800.00, make little sense. If they had to purchase 130,000 miles, that should have cost $4891.25 after the excise taxes (130 x $35 x 1.075). Was it $4800.00 exactly or $4891.25?

As for the 130000 miles... it could be exactly as jsloan says. They bought new Standard outbounds (2x65000) before the redeposit hit the account, and then the redeposits processed (-2x30000) resulting in a net 70000. This would be a classic mistake by a rookie inexperienced agent, but I can see that happening. Looking at the transaction history of the MP account, which the account owner can do online, should shed some light.

Please keep us posted on what you find.

MSPeconomist

Neither of them took the flight on which they had been booked, so both needed new tickets. However, only one name change was needed, so splitting the PNR would have allowed them to treat the husband's ticket under the flat tire rule and not charge to reissue it.....if UA had wanted to do it this way.

Often1

These third-party game-of-telephone threads are always difficult, because the OP only knows what he has been told by someone else and even minor inaccuracies are magnified.

It is unclear to me that UA even denied boarding here. OP states that "they did not board." Ordinarily, that would be an odd word choice but nobody here can tell exactly who said what at the counter.

As an aside for others, the simplest solution to the passport/name change issue is to book travel in the name of the passport, even if it is taking place after the marriage and the name is being changed.

Just make certain that ticket, passport, and KTN (if applicable) all match. Emergencies happen and that may necessitate emergency access to a new passport, but in the predictable situation, if you are traveling close in to the name change, just keep things the same.

cpyankees25

Here's one that happened to me the other day:

Two LH saver J tickets booked with partner's MP account. Called to split reservation, and then called back later (after the website didn't let me make the change) to switch one ticket from I to O. I was told the change fee was $75, and gave my credit card for that amount. At no point was mileage purchase discussed (as I thought the account had the 40k miles to cover it, which was the difference between O at 110k and I at 70k), nor was any charge beyond the $75 discussed. I look at the receipt the next morning, and there was a $1,500 charge for "mileage purchase fee."

I've had further correspondence since then, but nothing satisfactory, and thus resolution is pending.

seenitall

Did the account actually have the 40k miles to cover the difference? Or not? The difference is whether your dispute is that the $1500 charge is entirely wrong, or whether your complaint is that you were just never told about the $1500 so it was not distinctly authorized by you.

Lani1

Had problem on Monday with a baggage charge for daughter, called 1K desk and it was refunded in less then 5 minutes

docbert

How is a $1500 charge that you were "never told about" and didn't "distinctly authorized" not "entirely wrong"?