chavala

I wrote in yesterday asking if they would consider waiving my $200 change fee for a January r/t flight to Mexico, which I booked just a few days before the Points Plus announcement.
I explained the main reason I booked this destination was to use my remaining 2 RPUs, (which cleared at booking), but I would much rather use the 40 points, along with the other 40 from 1 expiring GPU, towards a (more expensive) ticket to Europe.

I thought they'd be happy to do this for me, since I've been a loyal 1K member for many years, and especially in lieu of the recent changes to the program.
But honestly, I would have been OK if they politely turned me down.

What I didn't expect was this:

"Thank you for reaching out to us!
We want to make sure you get the best service possible, and since your email concerns a current or future flight the best resource for you is going to be united.com .
If for any reason you can't find what you're looking for and you need additional assistance, please reach out to us by giving us a call at 1-800-864-8331 (1-800-UNITED-1), visiting our United Customer Contact Center page (that includes international contact options) or reaching out to us via our Twitter or Facebook pages.
Please note, this email box is not monitored. Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you on board soon!"


That's it. It was not even signed by a human. And they're directing me to TWITTER?

Maybe I'm making too much of this. But after just getting over the shock of the new 1K status rules, waking up to this email has got me depressed all over again.

I flew over 100k and spent over $15k to make status next year. I rarely write in to complain. Yet they can't even give me the courtesy of answering an email.
All I can think is, Wow. They REALLY want me gone.

MrCUBS

I've had this issue many times, more recently with an Award ticket they canceled and were not honoring in finding alternative routing. I wrote to them many times, and every single time got exactly the same automatic response. I had to call the 1K line and asked to be transferred to a 1K customer service supervisor (had to provide the case # though). What she told me is that, unfortunately that is how the system and the 1K desk can't do anything by email for future reservations. I made exactly the same comments on all my emails and to the supervisor, it is very unprofessional that none take the time to write back and explain this reading your email, instead of having an automatic response.
My advise to you, is call. You will not get an answer writing them
Good luck!

lincolnjkc

I had this when I wrote ranting about a schedule change that calling res was useless for (went from first in a E75 to a CR2. You can't* pay me to fly a CR2 -- I'd rather drop the segment and drive if I had to -- and that's not even accounting for the fact that it was a C fare that didn't even have any kind of proactive "hey, you paid for First and is it OK that we rebooked you for something worse than the baggage hold?" Nor did res seem particularly motivated to find a 2-cabin replacement routing.

Got the same bloody response... which makes some sense: It's far more efficient for booking/rebooking to just talk to someone on the phone rather than bounce 20 emails back and forth, but when I'm complaining about a general service failure something less robotic would have turned down, rather than up, my level of PO-ed ness. (I came close to just refunding and booking the trip on AA, but I calmed down before I could do that )

*- Actually one time I negotiated a $1500 ETC to take a CR2 as a bump from an oversold 145. I was going to take the $300 they started with until they told me it would be a CR2, I was like "eh, sorry. Not worth it." and they kept going up until I figured the suffering was worth it for an hour flight. As it turns out they didn't bump me, and I'm happier that way.