jiburi

Any successful class-action lawsuit amongst lifetime members will likely be a change for all legacy carriers. DL and AA lifetime members will be monitoring this thread.

Jiburi

libuser

maybe it is worth that we call out to lifetime members at AA and DL because they are in the same boat. Class action can be across different airlines not just limited to UA. I am going to fight for this.
I called a firm that has specialized about class actions for airlines and they will absolutely take on that case, since we have a lot of merit on what we are asking for. I hope United makes this right for their members, or this may become a lot more expensive than they thought.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Of course they will, as long as you pay them.

libuser

well i inquired about pro bono and they said that they would have to look more closely into T&C but totally doable. Im sure there will be someone that will take this on pro bono. This is clear breach in terms even if they can do that by T&C. Many people will be wronged.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Pro bono - seriously? I didn't know Lifetime Club members were charity cases. You must believe everything a phone UA agent tells you, too

HNLbasedFlyer

The bolded statement is in conflict with each other.....

My opinion, any law firm worth anything - would already look at the infamous million miler case against UA which has established precedent on "lifetime" not just for UA, but the other other airlines - and in my opinion, that case had far more merit. Lifetime terms just aren't lifetime......

Anyway, the DL lifers should sue first since their policy comes into affect Jan 1......

I really doubt the older T&C's did not have the following that exists today:

• United reserves the right to modify pricing, benefits, services, hours, club locations and reciprocal lounge agreements at any time with or without written notice to its members and customers.

HNLbasedFlyer

Like the lifetime million miler case? So many people thought they would blink or certain United wouldn't pay the lawyers or deal with the publicity and cave, they didn't just not blink or care about the publicity, they prevailed on the entire lawsuit.

LegalTender

Maybe they should say, “Don’t rely on anything we say" at the top of every page. Market forces tend not to approve of fraudulent promises. Explicit or implied. And reversals happen.

Kacee

pro bono publico = for the public good

I tend to agree, this doesn't sound like a pro bono matter. In fact, I suspect it would be difficult to find a good plaintiffs' lawyer to take it on a contingency. These kinds of cases against airlines have not fared well.

Nah, they can bury the right to change the rules at any time in the T&Cs and that's legally effective. Ask the million mile class members.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Yeah - very limited in scope and hardly a potential damages windfall. Potential plaintiffs will be paying to see this through if they want to.

Halo117

Sent email got the following response...I'm sorry that you're disappointed in the change. Please keep in mind it doesn't go into effect until November 2019. More details will be announced as that time gets closer.

still no response to my question about involuntary reroutes on non *A flights

At what point would restrictions violate the t's and c's? Could UA restrict lifetime access to tuesday mornings every month with a blue moon and still be in the right?

HNLbasedFlyer

Making a T&C specific only to lifetime UC club holders would probably open the door to litigation that could be won.

worldwidedreamer

Agents always have some discretion about whom to allow into clubs. Would not be surprised if there was no written policy change, but that agents were allowed (but not necessarily encouraged) to admit life members not flying United.

lincolnjkc

And a crafty, motivated, agent can always find workarounds that may not necessarily be policy compliant -- two of the most obvious would be admitting someone as the "guest" of a prior scan in, to just hitting the manual door release [in clubs where the gatekeeper is outside of the club proper [may be pmCO clubs only?] and waiving someone in (although too many of these would screw with the club's metrics which drive staffing levels, so it runs counter to the agent's interest). Heck, some of the clubs are arranged such that an agent legitimately may not notice someone 'slipping in'.

IMO, though, workarounds/breakarounds are beyond a last resort -- the policy should be "fixed" first (and admittedly I have maybe 3 trips a year where this policy change would truly affect me, and two of those I could use the original UA boarding pass (before getting bumped to an OAL) if I had to -- but for a paid membership it annoys me.

Out of curiosity, do lifetime UC membership cards differ in some way from the "standard" UC card such that if this exception is in place an agent could distinguish a lifetime membership (sans UA BP) from a standard membership without having to manually dig into the MP profile?

wxguy

My digital card (on the APP) has "Valid through Dec 31, 2099" -- likely past my lifetime. Maybe UA's as well.

The physical card says "Lifetime member."