kinet3k

So I had a flight booked with 50k miles. Yesterday I rebooked the same itinerary for the flight which became 46k miles and confirmation page stated that 4000 miles would be re-deposited to my account. (I'm glad I saved it). After 24 hours and no miles I talked to support which stated that no miles are owed despite me sharing the screenshot and new flight being 4k less. Any one met same issue? Apparently it would've been easier to just cancel the booking and rebook it again to save time dealing with all this UA BS.

susiesan

Try asking the twitter team to fix this for you. I've had the same happen to me and the twits seem to be able to solve problems. In the future, know it is better to first rebook at the new award level then cancel your old booking and have the miles redeposit.

kinet3k

I figured that it's easier to cancel and rebook. Talked to support again and they said it's a glitch. Never dealt with such BS. The screenshots from their own system mean nothing for them.

I'll report it to DOT and see how it goes. Don't like to be scammed like that.

Just submitted it to dot with screenshot evidence and pdf version of chat with UA support stating that the fact that miles should be redeposited is a glitch.

ani90

DOT for 4000 miles? You certainly were not scammed though or at least you haven't presented us with anything that suggests so.

fumje

I virtually always find it easier to rebook and cancel. Sometimes the change tool barfs without warning. New booking and cancel functions work much more reliably.

They're not scamming you, they just don't program their computers well for everything. Unless you need the miles right now for something else, I think you'd have been fine just contacting MPSC and asking them to refund the 4k. DOT is overkill.

rjburns

DOT? Don't bother. If UA cared, they would have fixed the "glitch." Ergo, they don't care and a DOT complaint is only an exercise in futility and frustration.

mduell

The real upside of a DOT complaint is it gets someone more competent to the actual rules to review your issue, rather than random offshore staff.

jsloan

^^ This, but also: UA really does care how many DOT complaints they get � I promise. UA�s refund systems are a mess; I give them one opportunity to get it right; when they don�t, it�s straight to the DOT. It only takes a moment to file a complaint, and incorrect pricing is hardly trivial. Would you say the same thing if they promised a $40 refund and then reneged?

OP: this happened because you tried to rebook the same flight without trying to rebook an intermediary first. If you�d done this as part of a flight change, you wouldn�t have had a problem; it�s only coming up because you�re trying to �change� to the same flight and UA doesn�t really like that. It�s frustrating that UA is so petty, though; they�re basically just taking advantage of people who opt not to become experts in UA systems (which is, what, 99.9% of their customer base?)

They deserve the DOT complaint for this and any other refund issue, until they prioritize getting it right and/or the DOT decides to put some teeth into their refund rules.

kinet3k

[mod edit]

kinet3k

Took me a minute to submit their form. If they do something - good. If they don't - I don't care. The company commits fraud and denies that. I'd understand if they accepted responsibility and credited the miles but they just keep denying that anything is to be redeposited despite me providing evidence. As soon as I run out of their miles I'm out.

fumje

I think I have a different, perhaps incorrect, interpretation of the exchanges OP has had with UA. Seems that in the first conversation the agent definitely gave a bogus response. However, in the second, with agent noting a "glitch", I'm unclear about whether it has been routed internally for a manual adjustment — I assumed it has, and that it's still pending, but maybe that's not true. If UA is still working on it, I think going to DOT is overkill right now. But if they've really just told OP to get lost and forget about it, certainly DOT is appropriate.

On another note, my experience with the change tool for awards is that it behaves differently than for revenue flights, at least when working properly. I have used it occasionally, despite preferring not to. With award changes, you can choose the same flights again and get a refund. When selecting flights in the list of search results, it shows the new award price (rather than the positive differential or "0" for negative differential), and it sends a "your United reservation for ... is processing" email with a redeposit of the differential. I have done exactly this last month, rebooked onto the exact same flights to capture lower award price.

However, that does raise a new question for me. The way the change posts in MP activity is as a full redeposit of original award and full redemption for new award. I would think OP did remember mileage balance before and note that balance after did not increase as it should have. But there won't be a 4k RDM refund line, which could be confusing. It seems a silly question, but kinet3k, are you sure you're missing 4k miles? If so please do let us know how this turns out.

change summary / reservation processing notice
MP activity

ani90

[mod edit]This is not worth DOT time or indeed, arguably, worth extended discussion. Call United again and speak to the right person (eg MP service center and not web support) - you will get your 4000 miles back if they truly owe you that.

Regardless this is still not a scam...

kinet3k

So explicitly mentioning on every page that 4k miles are to be redeposited back to my account without actually doing so is not scamming in your book?

Let me remind you a definition of scam: "a dishonest scheme; a fraud."

Now let me ask you a question: if company explicitly states that 4k miles are to be redeposited back to my account and does not do this, is this not a scam?

fumje

I don't consider it a scam if it's an honest mistake, and if they do correct it.

However, as I mentioned just above, I'm a bit uncertain about the exact situation, e.g., whether there are miles missing and they're refusing to fix it, or if they're still working on it. As I said in the follow-up, if they won't correct it, DOT is appropriate.

s0ssos

How do you define it as "honest"?