I wanted your opinion on whether I am entitled to any compensation.

I flew from Singapore to Seattle via Hong Kong and San Francisco. I was flying on a Business Class ticket and wanted to upgrade to First Class. I was already clreaded to First from SIN-HKG, and the SFO-SEA flight was confirmed in F right from the start.

I had a bit of an issue with the Purser while I was flying from SFO to NRT in F about 4 weeks ago. To cut the long story short, he didn't like the fact that I was young and flying First Class... . He probably also thought I was using my dad's 1K card like all the other FA's were guessing on the flight

I called United about this, and they told me that they would give me CS vouchers. I declined as said that I would much rather be put on the top of the priority list for the upgrade to First class. I had a family friend in F and wanted to join him.

The CS agent agreed that that was a much better solution, and immediately proceeded to call inventory management. He came back and told me that i was on the top of the priority list (ahead of everyone including GS), and that as soon as a seat would come available, I would be the first one to receive it.

I checked for my flight to Hong Kong, and the upgrade still hadn't cleared to San Francisco. I asked the check-in lady whether I was on top priority and she said that she saw the comment from WHQ about my high priority status. When I went to the gate, the gate agent said that same thing and also confirmed that she would send a message to Hong Kong.

As soon as I arrived at the Hong Kong RCC I informed the United agent about the comment in my PNR, and he proceeded to call the check-in desk to inform them of my priority level. I sat down, and 1.5 hours later I proceeded to board - my upgrade still hadn't cleared.

While I was walking to the gate, I received a call from my friend who told me that he wouldn't be able to make the flight, as he still had business to attend to on monday. He asked me whether I had cleared the w/l and I said I hadn't and immediately ran back to the RCC since now a FC seat was empty.

As soon as I arrived at the desk, the agent looked into his computer and found that a GS member had been upgraded before me, even though I was on the top of the priorty waitlist. He started making up stories telling me that the comment didn't say that I was supposed to be ahead of GS members - despite the fact that 1.5 hours before he said that complete opposite. He didn't seem to understand how serious I took this situation, as he proceeded to ignore me and started to make announcements for boarding.

I was calm and friendly throughout the scenario.

I walked over to the gate and asked to speak to the supervisor, to whom I explained everything from the beginning. He told me that Singapore should have sent a mesage, and I told him that they did, and even if they didn't the United rep. at the RCC knew about the note 2 hours and 15 minutes prior to the departure time of the flights (I then went on to inform him that no-shows were only removed from the flight at 12:05pm, and the flight left at 12:40. I knew that my friend had cancelled his reservation at 11:30am and I arrived in HKG at 10:00am.

For the first time ever, I felt that I had to explain to him how loyal I have been to United in the past, and that despite the fact I was treated badly in the past I continued to fly with United. I don' t know if this was a mistake, but I mentioned to him that I had flown over 160'000 miles last year, of which 144'000 were on United.

He became nervous and started to type away on his computer - the three other ladies behind the desk started to get nervous as well. He told me that he would make it up to me the next time, to which I immediately informed him that there won't be a next time.

I told him that I didn't expect him to downgrade the other passenger, but that I expected compensation, an explenation and an apology by the time I arrived in San Francisco. I took my boarding pass and proceeded to the plane.

Once I sat down the gate agent came back to me and apologized again. He informed the Purser and told me that he would sent a message to WHQ. The purser introduced himself and said that he would take "good care of me" on the flight. Needless to say, the FA in my section was rude and I didn't see the Purser once the entire flight. I also didn't receive an apology , an explenation, or compensation once I arrived in SFO.

I spoke to Customer Relations, and all they offered me was a domestic upgrade... . I felt quite insulted and told them how I felt.

I am about to write a letter to Diane Soucy-Bergen (spelling?). It is clear that United has no clue who their loyal customers are.

I don't have a problem with sitting in a Business Class seat. But I do have a problem with being lied to, which is what I felt happened in this particular scenario.

I am also quite disappointed by the fact that I had used a SWU only for a flight from SIN to HKG - granted, it was a risk that I was willing to take, but knowing that someone else was upgraded before me makes the whole situation worse.




What do you think is appropriate for compensation?

I don't know why someone at WHQ promised you that you'd clear ahead of UGS. AFAIK, there is no way they can override the auto-DM list without actually opening a seat and putting you in it in the same transaction.

I think that whoever you talked to originally made a promise that they couldn't possibly keep.

When your friend cancelled, the first person on the DM list was cleared by the computer. As we now know, that most certainly wasn't you.

I'd ask for the SWU back, but that in itself may be a long shot.

Compensation for what?

This seems like one of those situations where UA loses in either case. If I were the UGS, someone who spent a lot more money than you apparently on UA, and found out some "kid" got bumped up ahead of me because of politics, I too would feel cheated. But you got what you paid for. Why are you now "entitled" to compensation? So you were lied to. What, this was the first time it ever happened? I don't want to sound grinch-ish, but grow up. If you don't like what UA did to you, it is a free country. Take your business elsewhere. UA will probably offer you compensation, like the domestic upgrade, but for my money, you aren't "entitled" to anything but an honest apology.

In the past it has happened - a friend of mine was once downgraded to Y, and both of us were put ahead of everyone else on the upgrade list for our next sector. We both cleared before everyone else.

I'd take the domstic upgrade, and write the letter as well, expecting nothing more. UA did nothing that cost you the value of an intl upgrade, therfore is not liable by its written policies to give you that value.
UA does have written policies about how upgrades are cleared, and it is by status, and fare paid. For someone to have doccumented your PNR as to the fact that they would circumvent the established policy was not a wise move on their part. You were polite in saying that you wouldn't have them downgrade the GS member, who by united's policies gets 1st crack at that UG.

Where the UG for you fell apart was that your PNR doccumentation is a manual thing, that isn't going to clear by any of the automatic systems that cleared the GS member. If you were somehow at the computer in the nanosecond between when your friends reservation was cncld, and the time that the que clearing for the GS member cleared (1 in a trillion chance) and were somehow able to have the agent offload your seat, rebook you, and end your record before the computer could do the same thing for the GS member, it would have worked. Unfortunately for you, in this world of automation, the hard programming of United's policies is always faster than the soft typing of an agent.

What would have worked for you, was if your friends seat was NEVER released, thereby never opening a seat for the automatic system to clear the next person in line (the GS member) via the written programming. The agent at the gate would have just upgraded you into the seat that your friend didn't check into, as DM list upgrades are manual, versus the PNR clearing of the 1k.

Your friend (or you or whoever cncld your friends seat) did the right thing by cncling the reservation, as this is how the system is supposed to work. It isn't fair to you that this happened, and it wouldn't be fair to the GS member to get bypassed for you in opposition of UA's stated waitlist clearing policies.

Sometimes, even the best plans don't work do to over-riding programing. Take the UG cert, and learn that you should always take what you can get at the time it is offered, versus hoping that an exception outside the rules will come thru.

Sorry this happened to you,
fastair.



As for the OP being cleared ahead...that was done manualy thru the DM list. Noone cncld a reservaton that opened up a seat in the computer for the computer to clear according to programming.

I would like to offer you my own compensation. Go onto Tiger Air's website, and book the $9.00 SIN-Phuket flight. Their press release says they have 20,000 seats available at that price, and their local economy could sure use the boost. win/win

I know this may seem harsh, but I almost look at this as a downgrade... .

I'm confused.... . Why?

But that is not the situation here. I was supposed to be ahead of the UGS - as promised. The UGS would have never found out who cleared before him.

....and if the UGS wouldn't have cleared the list, then he would have also gotten what he paid for. What's your point?

I never stated that I was entitled to compensation - I asked for an opinion whether or not I was entitled to compensation. If you think I was not, then state your point briefly and respectfully.

At United? Or in life?

I simply asked for an opinion - I don't know what that has to do with growing up.

I may have said that there won't be a next time, but who says that there won't? I just told him because at that point in time I felt that was the appropriate thing to say. Or do you think that it would have been better had I told him "Yes, there will be many more times I will fly United without question! Any united can continue to tell me things that are not true!"

I agree that what happened wasn't the worst thing in the world. But hey, if I were promised something, not given it, and then lied to about it, I'd want some compensation equal to what I gave up and/or to compensate for the disappointment springing from the screw-up. A UA rep (in WHQ) promised you'd get the upgrade if it became available and other UA reps confirmed it. It did become available and you didn't get it. Plus you burned an SWU relying on that promise and it sounds like the UA reps knew they'd screwed up. So I'd say you should press for an SWU as compensation.

Fastair makes some good points about the way the UG system works, but I still beg to disagree. The fact that a UA rep promised more than the airline could deliver still puts the onus on UA, not you, to deal with that rep's initial mistake and then the other reps' compounding the mistake. If in response to a previous problem a rep had, say, told me a $100 ticket change fee would be waived and I relied on that promise in making the change, I'd seek the $100 compensation even if the computer overrode that waiver.

Yes, because a nice GA booked you FFCC on the DM or changed you BP Priority.

As for the OP, that is only way UA could have promised him what they "said" they did. After 100K+ miles on UA and apparently knowledge of the UG system, how the OP thought a comment in the PNR would work is beyond me.

I think that UGS customers probably are the most loyal customers that UA does have. The UGS member out there who got the UG on that flight is out there somewhere raving about how good UA and UGS really are.

As with many other things related to computers - they aren't good at handling "exceptions" such as a special note on the PNR. I simply wouldn't trust anything like that, and wouldn't expect it to clear automatically, or even if I constantly pushed and prodded an agent. I'd consider it dumb luck if it actually worked like that.

I'd just take the domestic u/g they offered you and pursue the recredit of the SWU like others have said.

If I read his post correctly, 2 of his segments were already confirmed using the system UG, so in effect, he burned nothing additionally based on his expectation from UA, than what he would have used anyway. (I may have read the post wrong, and correct me if I did.) I don't think he was lied to either. I would bet that the PNR comment did not state that he should go above a UGS member, although, it may have been the intention (or it may not have been.) This is a no-win situation for UA, as an employee should not offer to break UA's policies, especially those that will have a direct effect on another passenger (i.e. the UGS member who would then NOT have gotten his UG.)

UG's are not written in the contract of carriage, but last time I looked, it states that NO UA EMPLOYEE CAN MODIFY THIS WITHOUT THE EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM (Glenn Tilton, Board of Directors, Jesus, or the Major League Ball Club.) Since this is not covered in the contract it isn't governed the same way, but hypotheticaly, what form of compensation should the UGS member have been given for taking what should have been HIS seat away from him? Sure, you state that he would have never known, but truth is absolute, and is not dependant on whether a person is aware they have been wronged...the net effect would still have been the same.

#1. While it may have been true that prior to the day of the flight you were number 1 on the waitlist, it changes the day of departure to the DM list and not the waitlist that you were on. That is no one's fault; it is the way the system works. With good reason.

#2. The CS agent you spoke with made a commitment that she/he was in no way authorized to make. That's the agents fault not your's.

#3. You are not out anything other than a missed opportunity, there will be many more along the road of life, therefore the offer of an upgrade must be viewed as a bonus opportunity. UA is trying to make amends. Not all amends are fully restorative as this is sometimes impossible. And no, I don't think a guarantee to upgrade your next HKG-SFO flight to First is a reasonable expectation either.

#4. Based on your description of the events, the gate agent handled it appropriately and politely. It appears that the inflight crew set an expectation that wasn't met.

#5. And finally. It really is all about expectations. Your own were not met. That is dissapointing and frustrating. Sometimes I find myself angry as well but I get over it.

Regular agents can put folks in FFCC? I thought this required an SD or some such?

I had no idea they can change BP priority manually...

For anyone who's ever read the NY Times Magazine column "The Ethicist," that's what this thread is seeming like...not that that's a bad thing. Anyway, I certainly don't think the UGS member should have been bumped due to UA's mistakes. But I'll take the OP's word on what he was told by UA reps; whether they did so out of ignorance or just a desire to not deal with him is another matter, though I'll give them the benefit of the doubt also and chalk it up to ignorance.

I guess I disagree with your interpretation of the situation, if not the post. I imagine that the OP would not have used his SWU unless he thought he had a good chance of landing the UG for HK to SF--Singapore to HK and SF to Seattle alone would not have been worth the SWU. So he was misled by UA, and used the SWU as a result. Which is why I still think the onus is on UA.

On the other hand--and now I'm really going off the deep end in reading his mind--if this were an SWU that is expiring at the end of this month, so he would not have a chance to use it on another trip, he would have used it regardless. In which case, he wasn't really relying on UA's mistaken promise.

OK, I'll shut up now.

FFCC can be done to anyone by anyone, but should only be done for a passenger on a full fare (using full miles or $$, no upgrades) C or F passenger. It is expected that every agent do it in that situation as well. It is not the "level" of the agent, rather, the level of the ticket, which determines if the FFCC is applicable. There are no other protocals that are accepted by UA to add one to that list (it is NOT designed for moving someone ahead of others, although I have seen it improperly used that way.)

Well stated. However, as per above, agents are also empowered to change the BP level of a "disserviced" passenger.