Consolidated Global Services Thread: Benefits, Questions, Experiences [2020]
 

Happy 2020 everyone! Here's the 2020 thread continued from the 2019 thread.

Thanks for kicking this off. You may want to edit the wiki to change the RPU/GPU references to points and their values.

thanks for taking the lead

Was just charged 28k for a (forced) companion FC one way mileage ticket onto a domestic flight I was traveling on in a paid F fare. Never been charged anything other than 25k in the past for this, including one I booked just a few days ago.

3 non-status pax waitlisted with GS PP.

J9 Z9 P7 PN0 at T-72. They are on top of the waitlist.

Can GS call to manually push through the upgrades?

I am still not clear about the T-72 rule.

Sounds like the +3K "close in booking fee" that was instituted a few months ago. Yeah, I know -- GS/1K are supposed to be exempt from CIBFs, but I guess they only mean $ and not miles.

Yup, UA was basically targeting top tier elites and Club cardholders with the mileage close-in surcharge.

Yes.

GS must be traveling together to force through T-72.

not the case, I think some agents are saying that but others are allowing it. If you get one that says no just HUCA

True. I called for my daughter travelling alone ORD-SFO, first agent "can't do that anymore". HUCA and second agent "no problem".

Thanks for correction. Good to know it’s still possible, i tried several HUCA before success just now.

Yes, that is exactly what is happening. I changed an award flight after the changes went took effect and I had to pay an additional 3000 miles because the new departure was within a week. Basically the close-in booking fee has become a mileage surcharge and everyone needs to pay it.

Funny how UA was able to announce the at-the-time upcoming "positive" change of dropping in close-in booking fees yet managed to neglect announcing that all MP members would be subject to a mileage surcharge instead. Such a misleading announcement would be no surprise during the Smisek era but it is disappointing to hear it now.

Just did another one now that is 17 days out. It came back as 27.5k miles. Not a huge deal at the moment, but clearly the clean “25k” saver first class domestic ticket is no more and some form of dynamic pricing is now at play here.

Within 30 days or so you will pay a "close in booking fee" in miles. That's the extra 2.5K miles you see over the 25K. Look 30 days out and you should see the 25K awards.

And sometimes it’s 3k, sometimes 2.5k, based on my experiences just in the last week. Remember, these aren’t awards you “see” online, they are GS companion space overrides.

Feels more like “dynamic” pricing. Again, this isn’t a big deal right now, but it’s a scary precedent.

Just did another companion Polaris saver award to Europe, 120,000 miles. No problem and fairly quick. She kept apologizing for how long it was taking but the entire call was 6 minutes long.

Just got off with GS agent after trying to get companion saver first on two non-stop domestic one-way paid first tickets, AAA-BBB & BBB-AAA, separated by three days. After she did AAA-BBB, I gave her the PNR for BBB-AAA & she goes, "Oh, that's the return. As of December 12, we can only force saver for one way of a round-trip." So I said, "That's not a return of a round-trip ticket; it's a distinct one-way flight." So she goes, "I've got to call the global services benefits specialist. Please hold." Ten minutes later she comes back & says, "Even though two one-way tickets, according to GS specialist this is a return trip and only one way can force saver."

I didn't attempt a legalistic discussion of how to unambiguously define a particular one-way ticket as a "return". If this is really the new rule, it sucks.

Huca.
Or better yet
Do each on separate phone calls.

In the last couple months, I’ve gone from having to HUCA every 20 phone calls to doing 3 HUCAs every 3 calls. Seriously frustrating.

Re-posting this from the 2019 thread - I wrote to GS about the following

• T - XN conversion. I am told that the GS member needs to be traveling in order to convert T to XN. Furthermore, I am now told this is limited to 1 companion only.
• IN inventory while GS in paid business: I am told that if i now buy a round trip business class revenue ticket the agent is only allowed to open up IN class for one segment. e.g., if i buy ORD - SFO - HKG RT ticket as UA eliminated the ORD - HKG direct flight the GS agent can now only open up IN for one segment (i.e., ORD - SFO, SFO - HKG, HKG - SFO, or SFO-ORD). If this is the case i think this is a huge devaluation in program perks
• PZ - IN conversion. I am now told that PZ to IN conversion can take place but IN pricing can vary? E.g., I want to open up IN space on EWR - HKG as PZ is available. Up until a few months ago this meant that I would be charged 70K miles. How would this be priced now? This morning i had a GS agent open IN space on ORD - BKK via FRA and was told by one agent that it would cost be 96.5K miles and another agent 90K miles.
• XN / YN to PN upgrades. I am now told that agent can only process YN to PN. Saver award XN to PN using plus points has been eliminated as of 12/12/2019
• XN / IN pricing upon overbooking: Please provide clarity on pricing of XN (saver coach) OR IN (saver business). I flew ORD to TPE (connecting in SFO) three days ago in paid business. I opened up saver business (IN) for my wife and paid 70k miles. This morning i was told by a service director that the price for saver business will vary and she doesn’t know how it works. The computer algorithm will spit out the required number of miles.

Response from United

Thank you for being a Global Service member and congratulations for your 2020 invite! I'm sorry to hear of the confusion over your benefits. I contacted a representative from the Global Service Department directly.

Bullet #1. It is true that you are now limited to just 1 companion when converting T to XN class and you also have to be traveling.
Bullet #2. When you purchase a roundtrip business ticket, our guidelines now state that we can "open up" only one segment in IN class.
Bullet #3. You were advised correctly. The IN fare class pricing may change. It is part of what we call "dynamic pricing". We quote the amount of miles needed at the time of the request and this is subject to change.
Bullet #4. We can process both YN/XN to PN. So, the statement "Saver award XN to PN using plus points has been eliminated" is not correct per 3 different Global Service agents.
Bullet #5. Again, pricing may vary due to the dynamic pricing.

My apologies again for the lengthy phone calls and possibly conflicting information. We do expect every member of our team to provide professional service and it sounds like we fell short. My apologies. Please let us know if we may be of further assistance.

So, I just got the same message when trying to open a domestic saver award on a roundtrip. I asked her to "quote" the policy, and she had it pretty readily so not sure if it was really quoting, but she said something to the effect of "When a global services member purchases a first class ticket you may force space for only one leg of the journey (either upgrade or saver award space)". HUACA and got it done in 5 minutes.

The fact that she said "first class" makes me wonder if this is only for domestic, as I have yet to have any agent give me pushback on international. If this is how it is for domestic, I guess I could live with it, though I'm not happy about it. At risk is just the extra change fees if I have to change them. If this is the case for international as well, then it is a HUGE devaluation of Global Services benefits.

I also asked the first agent if it would matter if I did two one-ways instead. She said "I'm not really supposed to answer that".

Do we know if the difficult responses are coming disproportionately from the ex-Continental agents, or have Detroit and Honolulu agents gone rogue as well? Would be a real shame if we lost those super-helpful agents

I don't know how you'd be able to tell. All I know is I don't think this is an accident - the rogue agents might be the ones who are still being helpful...

I had a question sent to regular GS-email CS. But answer came back from mileageplus CS, not GS CS as I had always experienced sofar.
A new procedure?

So if you are flying RT aaa-bbb-ccc where ccc is in europe and all they will upgrade is bbb-ccc one way what happens for the rest? is it charged as a standard award or ?? Europe used to be 120 as a saver Biz. what would it be now?

Many GS flyers are part of a family of 3 or 4, e.g. wife/husband and a couple of kids, so allowing T>XN for two or three pax is really in order. On top IME this happens only once or twice/year anyway on a family vacation. This is a very family-unfriendly policy & huge devaluation.

How many GS' aren't 1MM flyers though? My wife gets my GS status which usually solves this issue.

This is what they're claiming. You'd either have to do an economy award with a Plus Points waitlist on the other leg, or buy a standard award, which with dynamic pricing...sky's the limit.

For example, on a EWR-ATH-EWR trip I have this fall, the pricing for a companion on a paid fare was 120,000 miles. If this rule was enforced, it would have jumped to 215,000 miles (155+60). The standard award for the return is actually showing as 236,000 miles ONE-WAY ATH-EWR, but in this case I'd obviously prefer the cheaper standard award on the outbound and use the "force" for the more expensive return.

Again if this holds, it's not only a massive devaluation, but would totally change whether I think fighting so hard for United to keep GS. Maybe united thinks GS will cough up the additional miles for companions, but instead I would just not take the trip in the first place, or fly economy.

Well, I'm a 4 year GS and won't reach 1MM until next month. And this only helps if the spouse has the miles. Most of the miles would be in the primary GS account which is where they have to come from.

This is exactly my view. If this change is enforced my travel on United is no longer mandatory. So i will play the field.

I really like Mileage Plus as a HS. Last thing I want is to be seen as circumventing rules & kicked out. So I'm gonna suck it up & pay Everyday for half of my flights.

Im 20k short of a million. Been GS for 5 or 6 years
now. I only fly domestic routes.

I think that’s been the policy for at least a year now. Got lucky with our 2019 summer vacations where savers were available without conversion.

Yes, previously it was overly generous - for up to like 8 people, IIRC. But now, it's overly restricted by cutting it down to 1 pax.
More so, as I had instances where I would go ahead for work, then to be joined by family flying in on their own.
MM GS spouse with two kids would not help either, even if spouse had the miles in her own account.

the GS+1 has been the policy for a bit--its all these other stealth devaluations that are killing me.

When I flip through the 'mystatus' page, its the least descriptive I've found it in years.

Stuff like you'll get your first choice meal is now 'When traveling in a premium cabin, our flight attendants will do their best to honor your first meal choice. "

I can't find anything on the perk around rebooking when a flight is cancelled. in past years, it was pretty specific. I don't see it all now

suck it up? I certainly plan on complaining first.

I have not received any new Pluspoints into my account for 2020. Should these already be posted?

I didn't fly that much in 2019, no need since I have lifetime GS. But in the past I have received 6 GPUs at the start of each year. Has there been any change in GS automatically getting the GPU/PP as part of requalification, regardless of whether you met the 1K requirements?

Lifetime benefits have posted as late as the 2nd or 3rd week of January.
Have not seen any reports of any Lifetime benefits have yet posted this year.

Thanks for that information. Seems strange to do it late, given that they know early on that the benefits continue...

They are probably waiting until it is clear none of the Lifetime MMers have otherwise earned the benefits -- and it can take up to a week for non-UA Dec 31 flights to clear the system. And handling piecemeal can lead to errors.