When you request a Polaris upgrade and placed on a waitlist, you are charged up front (no error) the miles and co-pay. This is what United was holding the miles and money for. You were not charged in error for the PP seat - UA was holding the money/miles for the Polaris upgrade. No need to accuse United of something they didn't do. What they didn't do was return the miles and money as promptly as they should have when the Polaris upgrade didn't come through - they did not charge you in error for the PP seat.

How do we even know there was an error? It typically takes up to 7 days for the refund to process after an upgrade request does not clear. And a substantial percentage of the time, it doesn't process automatically. That's not bait and switch, it's just flawed IT.

Not sure the accusatory thread title is warranted here.

I have more than once had to call and ask for my refund, it is annoying. Whether or not he was "charged in error for the PP" is another issue.

Yeah, it didn't be so annoying when the upgrades cleared more frequently :)

This might have been a premature complaint, but there are enough other people saying they've had to call that it suggests United isn't that concerned with possibly keeping people's money (and/or miles) when it shouldn't. These sorts of billing errors can only be said to be random/unintentional if they benefit the consumer half the time, which never seems to be the case. (I've twice been overcharged when doing buy-ups this year.)

I tried to use an RPU this month which didn't end up clearing. After eight days, I gave up waiting for it to go back to my account automatically so called to ask that it be re-deposited. The very nice and helpful agent took care of it while we were on the phone. BTW, the agent said it should happen automatically within 72 hours.

No justification for UA to hold on to either miles or money for a moment after the flight lands, much less a week.
They want you to forget about it so they can keep it when they oh so conveniently fail to refund it.

Just write in for the refund. I flew LHR-SFO a couple months ago in P+, which wasn't considered an upgrade. Miles were automatically returned, but the co-pay wasn't. A simple refund request fixed that. What people should BOLO for are close-in fee refunds. I'm 0:2 now on fee refunds for award tickets that I had cancelled 0-30 minutes after booking.

In 20 years flying United, I have never had it take over a week for miles to be redeposited. I have never had it take over a week for a copay to be refunded. I have never had a refund not process automatically.

As to "flawed IT", in this day and age of automation there is zero excuse for a refund or redeposit to be anything other than near instantanteous. There should be no manual intervention involved. And indeed on previous occasions that has been the case with United too.

Not sure making excuses for United is warranted here.

So it's now happened. Write/call in to fix it, or don't. There's no point in whining here because you won't get your miles or co-pay back through FT. After all, we call it United-dot-bomb for a reason.

You've led a charmed existence then.

The fact is the thread title is misleading hyperbole. If you had posted this as a question, we all would have said "yep, it happens. If it hasn't been refunded within a week, call and they'll refund it."

That's because other than for the seats on some planes, IT DOESN'T EXIST YET. When it does exist beginning in March, there will be upgraded soft product in addition to the seats. See: https://hub.united.com/united-announ...621985755.html

I don't think anyone is making excuses for United not refunding miles/money promptly on a failed upgrade request. We're just pointing out that you seen to continue to insist that United made some error in "charging you for PP seats". That's the conclusion you jumped to - "I didn't get my miles/money back, so United obviously charged me for PP". The only "error" UA has made here has been not to refund the Polaris upgrade request money promptly enough. "Upgrade bait and switch" is the accusatory title in debate. There was no bait (Polaris) and switch (PP) by United - there was a unsuccessful upgrade request and tardy refund.