tkdash421

I was happy enough to be able to volunteer to be bumped from a LAX to HKG flight on January 10th, 2008 in exchange for $500 voucher credit on United. Returning the 11th, I saw that the flight was again overbooked and saw this as a good chance to store up on vouchers since I fly internationally on United at least 4 times a year (last year got P2 will get P1 this year.) The agents at the desk assured me repeatedly that I would be able to combine the use of my vouchers (I had asked two different agents at two different times, showing the vouchers and explaining my situation.)

Over a month later, I reserved a flight February 21st over the phone with the United Airlines Premier reservations service. The agent also said I would be able to use any or all of my vouchers to pay for the flight.
On the 22nd I attempted to redeem the voucher packets at the United Airlines office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. I was told it was impossible, that only one "packet" of vouchers could be used at a time. Instead of being able to use $1000 or more of the vouchers for a $1500 fare, I was limited to $500, despite what the three representatives of United Airlines had said. I was polite but insistent and ended up in the office of the manager for United Airlines in Vietnam. He explained that he was sorry, but he couldnt do anything at all, despite what other United Airlines employees had promised us. He couldnt combine the vouchers so the credit could be issued in the system and he could not override the system.

So first of all, I am curious. Is it really true that the manager of United Airlines for an entire country has no power to help keep the word of other employees? And second of all, I want to warn others so they don't make the same mistake I did. Apparantly, some Type B vouchers cannot be combined. (Maybe everyone knows this already, I searched on FT for hours and I found that people COULD combine Type B.)

P.S. EVERY single employee I talk to (when United lost my luggage for 2 days, when I complain we cannot use the vouchers as promised) has fixated on how lucky I am to get the vouchers, as if United did us a much bigger favor by giving me the vouchers than I did them by giving my seat up to someone that was probably paying a very high fare.

Thank you.

cblaisd

Afaik, this has always been the rule. My recollection is that the vouchers I have received have had this rule stated on them.

iluv2fly

Correct.

Although I don't remember if it is stated anywhere on the "booklet", you can use from one to four coupons from the same book for a flight. Cannot combine more than one book.

MarkXS

Yes, it's stated right on the instruction/terms page or card that comes with the "booklet" when the GA gives you the VDB vouchers. ("Booklet" in quotes because it's not always an actual booklet, sometimes separate sheets depending on what kind of printer that gate has.)

Think of the vouchers as coupons that are part of one ticket. In a way, that's almost what they are - they have the same numbering as do tickets, with coupons 1, 2, 3, 4. I haven't gotten more than $400 at a time, so I don't know if they can go beyond coupon 4 or if a new sequence needs to be started.

You can use some, or all of the coupons you get in one bump voucher set to buy one ticket. You just can't combine coupons from different sets towards the same one ticket. AFAIK that's always been how it works. In part probably to prevent people from buying expensive tickets totally with vouchers.

BTW for the OP, your status code for Premier Exec and Premier are "1P" and "2P", not "P1" and "P2"

Oh and welcome to Flyertalk! May you get many more vouchers - it's still a good deal even if you can't make the big score all on one ticket.

TA

this issue is an annoyance for those who encounter it -- because if it says "treat as type B", it should be combinable!

in fact, recently at LAX, I was able to combine 3 books of vouchers, with the help of one excellent CS/supervisor (I believe) who had formerly been employed at the rate desk. So it is possible, but many will tell you it is not.

MarkXS

Many things at UA are possible in an in-person transaction with an agent willing to break the rules, or harried enough to get a flight out or other time-critical issue that they don't care about the rules.

However the rule is that these booklets are not combinable.

It's a gift when somebody is able to get them combined. However we shouldn't be thinking UA did something wrong when they follow the rules that are printed right on the coupon booklet.

cepheid

"Type B" does not mean "combinable" in and of itself. Type B specifies the method in which the voucher can be applied - specifically, as a form of payment rather than a discount. The difference here is that it shows up differently on e-receipts and it is usually (perhaps always) refundable, because it's a form of payment. On the other hand, Type A vouchers are discounts and therefore behave differently.

Combinability is not an inherent trait of Type Bs, despite its commonality. The T&Cs always supercede any perceived inherent traits of the vouchers, regardless.

1KChinito

Welcome to FT, tkdash421 .

Travel Credit T&C

1. Non-combinable/non-endorsable/non-extendible/non-refundable.

Four coupons per booklet; same dollar amount and serial number on each coupon.

tkdash421

A big "thank you" to everyone for their input. It is always a little scary to make your first post, and I appreciate the welcome and the patience with my question(s) and posting error(s). I hope I can offer something in return someday! The only tip I have for now is fly to HKG from LAX sometime in the week before Tet (Chinese New Year) if you want a good chance to be VDB.

germansoks

does this really work? I have a 350$ "type b" systemwide voucher. I want to purchase a ticket that involves a LH flight.

If I use the 350$ voucher to buy an "all UA" refundable ticket can I refund that ticket and use the value against my desired ticket that includes the LH flight?

Great if it works, but I'd like to hear some recent first hand experiences. thanks.

timezone_trooper

Ok I'm trying to validate my understanding of how vouchers can be combined, your input is appreciated. I have the following:

• $200 VDB booklet (4 coupons)
• $250 CS cert
• $200 CS cert
• $100 CS cert (WEBDOLLAR type)

My understanding is that I can combine the VDB vouchers with a maximum of one of the other certs.

I'm also under the impression that I cannot combine the CS certs with each other.

How does that track?

VPescado

Assuming the certs are all paper you are correct. But WEBDOLLAR sounds like it is not paper.

The problem is that you will need to ticket with a human for the VDB certs, and a human can't deal with an e-cert.

1KChinito

The easiest way to tell is what type of vouchers you have by:

1. Type A; discount, no residual value
2. Type B; cash
a. From denied boarding; 4 coupons with identical dollar amount and serial number; no residual value
b. From refaring
c. From overage of a previously issued ticket or 2(b)
3. Type AB, cash

Combinability

* You can only combine one type A with several type B vouchers.
* You can combine as many type B vouchers as a CSR allows; usually three.
* You cannot combine two type A vouchers
* Type AB is not combinable with any type of vouchers including type AB

I have difficulties combining type B (above 2a) with other vouchers. CSR told me in the T&C, denied boarding vouchers are not combinable with any other vouchers.

timezone_trooper

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

Thanks for the response

LIH Prem

Well, it was a fun day at the airport today. I decided to grab an award ticket to SoCal for my daughter in mid summer and book my own astronomically priced ticket on the same flights using a combination of a CS200 type A discount voucher and $600 in Type B VDB vouchers.

For some reason, at the airport, the final price was showing up about $14 more than my held itinerary said it should be, so the nice agent called over his service director who was working the Go! ticket line and asked him what was wrong.

That's when things went bad. The SD decided to check the rules on the CS200, which of course say not combinable with other discount vouchers and refused to ticket, even though the computer had already accepted the discount voucher and the credit voucher. The more I tried to explain it to him, the worse it got. I finally pleaded with him to call the help desk, hoping they would explain it to him, and he flat out refused. At that point, voices were raised, he was threatening to have me removed from the airport (reaching for the phone) as I calmly told him that disagreements were not threats, and he decided to annotate my record. (Why do I feel like this is Jr High all over again?) I asked for his name, he refused to give it to me, but he gave me his "number", and as I tried to read his name of his badge, he covered it up with his hand.

I pleaded with him again to call the help desk, he refused. He said the only way he would ticket it, is if I called the 1K desk and they annotated the record telling him it was ok to do so.

I didn't have my cell phone with me, so I went over to the pay phone, called the 1K line, but decided not to wait the estimated 10 minutes to get an agent on the line, since I knew the call would take a while even after I got an agent on the phone.

I left, and did the other couple of errands I had to do in town, drove back up the mountain, and called 1K reservations, got a very helpful agent on the line, who had to go check the situation with the vouchers (standard PMO/DOLLARUA CS200 voucher + typical 4 x $150 VDB vouchers all attached in a single book) and though it took her a while to get the answer from the ticketing desk, she did get the right answer, and annotated the record.

Back to the airport, the same nice agent is there (the first one, the SD is nowhere in sight), he apologized for what happened and indicated that he understood the combinability (one's a discount, the other's a credit), but there wasn't much he could do once the SD decided otherwise.

I don't know what you would do, but before I left home, I retrieved a GTEM cert from my bag, and handed it back with the SDs "number" (written on a baggage tag) and gave it to the agent to give to the SD. I signed it and wrote on the back, "I appreciate all the good service I get from the Maui crew all the time". I explained all this to the agent and that I didn't do anything with his number and that I appreciate all the hard work the local crew does. Normally, these folks are fantastic.

I guess everybody is entitled to a bad day. I'll chalk this one up to an exception I guess. I just wish the SD would have called the ticketing desk for clarification. (or instructed the agent to check with the ticketing desk.)

And I still ended up paying the extra $14. I have no idea why, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over $14.

Oh well.

-David