tomwht

Although I had made arrangements for my son to use one of my electronic SWUs on last night's (01/23/04) flight 940 from ORD-FRA, had cleared it twice with SEA ticket agents (where his trip began), and once with the 1K desk, the ORD gate agent and her supervisor at ORD acted as though they had never heard of such a thing. He was told at SEA that he was at the top of the waitlist, but there must be different rules in ORD.

Here is his story:

"well, i'm back in Frankfurt, narrowly. wound up having a bit over 30 minutes for my connection in chicago. was sternly refused the upgrade at chicago even though the plane flew with approximately half of the business cabin empty, because the gate agent couldn't figure out where to look for the comments from the seattle CSRs and her supervisor argued with me that an SWU could not be used for a W-class fare, repeatedly asserting he could do nothing if i could not provide him a paper certificate and he kept asking whose miles were being used - i told him it had nothing to do with miles, it was an SWU, but he flatly refused to entertain the possibility that he did not know everything and told me SWUs were paper and if i did not have one i could not upgrade and, furthermore, no SWUs are valid for international upgrades on W-class fares regardless, and i could not upgrade with miles because of the fare category (i never SAID anything about miles!!!!). i told him the rules had changed to allow W-fares to be upgraded and that the SWU was coming out of your mileage plus account, but he absolutely refused the possibility. i asked him why there was no problem with your coming in to the airport in seattle and arranging everything but that now that i was in chicago he was creating a situation, and his response was that he did this flight every day and i didn't know what i was talking about. [later, on the plane, i thought of what i SHOULD have said, which would have been 'good for you, you handle this flight every day - so do those duties include writing and revising mileage plus program policies?"]

the gate agent [who had initially explained the situation to her supervisor by starting off with "*Supposedly*..." as i stood right there - i said NO, not "supposedly" - these are events that actually took place] went into your account at my behest and saw that there *were* 8 SWUs in your account, but at that point the supervisor had had enough and told me i needed to just get on the plane and take my seat and the case was closed. i was absolutely furious. they also never called me for my upgrade. the first time i went up this man spat out that no one had been called for upgrades yet - so i waited until NO ONE was left, no one was in line, and we were supposed to leave in 15 minutes, and went back to the counter and that guy refused to talk to me and called down to monica 'here's your last upgrade customer' - they were never going to call me!!!! and i remember that in seattle, the woman had told me i was at the top of the waitlist. i am SO mad. if nothing else, they should have just comped the upgrade to avoid having me stew and get angry for the first few hours of the flight, as several babies screamed in chorus from the rows behind. it was 100% their fault, but god forBID there should ever be an error in FAVOR of the customer.

now i'm just tired. but i definitley want you to write a complaint letter. and i'm going to see if that person is working there when i am in chicago tomorrow - find something for me i can print out and take to him that shows, first of all, that not all SWUs are paper, and secondly, that W fares are upgradeable. and that SWUs are transferable. i found talk about it on flyertalk.com, but maybe at the 1K website there is something "official" i could print out."

I have sent a complaint letter to the 1K desk. This would not have happened with paper certs.


[This message has been edited by tomwht (edited Jan 24, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by tomwht (edited Jan 24, 2004).]

1KChinito

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum50/HTML/024597.html

Edited to add: http://www.united.com/page/article/0...d%20Conditions

[This message has been edited by ecmt (edited Jan 24, 2004).]