e-certs are worthless
 

Frustration levels running high here.

Completed a trade on CC and got a $100 ecert. I went to united.crap to book my eligible ticket (book by 10/31, min $250 published base fare) and the original fare is only reduced by $26. What is the point of distributing e-certs that the website can not handle. A phone call was neccessary to "try" to rectify the problem within a week.

Ditto for me
 

I've tried using various %-off and $-off e-certs over the last several months without any success (even though I've always met the conditions of the certs).

It's no big deal, but it does leave me feeling a little bit like I've been "had" each time.

While I had a long string of bad luck, the last three e-certs I used (10% and 2 x $200) all worked as advertised.

Many people have reported problems with this in many threads before. A common suggestion is to book the ticket anyways and then keep calling United Web Support until you find someone who is aware of the problem and have them credit it back to your card. I have not really been keeping up on it, but I think some people have received the money back they were suppoed to get.

At least something got taken off of your fare. Most people report the infamous "I found a lower fare than the one that is e-Cert eligible" message eventhough your e-Cert is good on all fares... I had 2x$100 certs. Neither worked, then one worked and the other had to be replaced by a paper cert. The one that worked online took off exactly $100 as it was supposed to. The paper replacement cert obviously worked and I didin't even have to pay the phone booking fee, maybe because I was using the paper cert and had no other choice.

On the other hand, I have never gotten the e-Certs from the Entertainment book to work, no matter what I do....

You are not alone in your frustration. Just remember, you always have 24 hours to cancel if Web Support says they can't do anything.

See my thread "If you used an E-Cert recently you may have been overcharged" http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=479689 and the others referenced in post #38. UA is aware of the problem. You can ask ual.crap support to refund the difference.

Sometimes they will refund, sometimes they won't until you make many calls and dispute it with your credit card, sometimes they refund correctly, sometimes too much, sometimes too little. YMMV.

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This topic has been discussed quite a lot in at least FIVE other threads, including the one that Gene posted above. For links to the other threads, look at my post here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...4&postcount=38

The devil is in the details. If you read the T&Cs, you'll find that some of these e-certs (including the type being discussed on this thread, the "dollars-off" kind), are NOT valid on internet-only fares (among other restrictions). In such a case, the website will often notch up to the next higher available fare, and apply the discount to that. This is perfectly legit.

To ascertain whether a fare is internet-only, you need to look at the fare rules (by clicking on "fare rules"). Most people don't think to do this, so they leap to the conclusion that the system is cheating them whenever the discount is less than they had hoped.

HOWEVER, having said all that, it IS true that sometimes the website erroneously assumes that a fare is internet-only, or is otherwise ineligible for the discount, when in fact it is eligible. I have spent a lot of hours trying to redeem $200-off e-certs (I had nine of them in total, purchased from United for 15,000 miles apiece), so I know how buggy the system is, and it nearly drove ME buggy! I did finally manage to redeem all my certs by a few days before the expiration date, and I did get reasonably good use out of them. But it wasn't easy. In addition to the nine $200-off e-certs, I successfully redeemed a 10% off Europe e-cert that was offered in a recent promo.

So, having ten recent e-cert redemptions under my belt, I would NOT call them "worthless" by any means. :D

I would recommend NEVER waiting till the last minute before the deadline to redeem such certs. Also, it would pay to do a bit of research by reading the relevant threads before even acquiring and using e-certs!!! That's what FlyerTalk is for. @:-)

I was successful last year with e-certs but ever since the computer fiasco a month or so ago, I have not been able to use any. And, about that time, united.crap was giving a fare $200 greater than the special "webfare" I got on the phone. I am really mad about that one since I missed out on not only the 1000 bonus points but also the eqm's you are supposed to get with your credit card and no one at UA will take responsibility. Right now I am in a VERY foul mood because, once again, UA's computer geniuses have screwed up and have wakened me twice this week in the middle of the night with Easy Updates.

I gotta disagree on this one. These are the relevant T&C's I had on my "dollars off" certs:

ALLOWABLE FARES:
This discount can be used on all First, Business and Economy booking
classes. The fare purchased must be greater than the value of the
certificate you are redeeming.
RESTRICTED FARES:
This discount may not be used on the following fare types: Fares that
are not displayed as electronic certificate eligible on united.com


There is nothing that disallows Internet only fares anywhere in the T&C's, yet I had many problems trying to redeem them even when the little green star showed up.

Now I agree that there are many different problems out there and that some of the certs may have the "no internet fare" clause in there, but it is not the source of all the problems. United.com is the source of all the problems and that is about the only sweeping statement that can be made.

:td:

You're kidding right? Conspiracy to commit fraud? We can barely prove that the e-certs don't work properly, let alone a malicious intent that would satisfy the burden of a criminal court. You ought to rethink this or just stop flying UA if not getting a $25-50 discount ruffles your plume so much. I'm going to presume that you're gonna say its the principle of the matter, but I think that's a bunk way to cover for being sore about not getting the discount.

I would have agreed with the original poster, and all subsequent negative comments, except that I managed to get a $100 e-cert to work last night FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER! :D And on an open-jaw, no less!

Amazing how low my standards have sunk. (It actually took $99 and change off, but I can live with that--assuming it's a tax calculation).

Go back and re-read my post, please (and read it carefully and completely). WHERE did I say that "it is the source of all the problems?" On the contrary, I said the following (bolding added):

And, just FYI, here are a portion of the T&Cs of my $200-off e-certs (cut and pasted from the offer, bolding added):

I think a big problem is the lack of transparency (to use a currently fashionable buzzword) as to whether a particular fare should or should not qualify for the e-cert discount. And as I have said on this thread and several others (links provided above), it is QUITE CLEAR that the website is buggy and inconsistent (i.e., sometimes it works properly, sometimes it doesn't) wrt these certs (notwithstanding any failures by some to understand what I posted).

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I focused too much on the following sentence

I had thought you were implying that all "dollar off" certs were restricted against Internet fares which is not the case. Didn't want people to just assume that their T&C's would be the same because their certs are "dollar off" certs.

That being said, I have experienced many failures where all fares should be eligible, and are marked as such with the little green star, but yet the website still fails miserably with the ubiquitous "I found a lower fare that is not e-Cert eligible" message which is of course impossible because all fares should be eligible.

Eventhough we may have miscommunications via the things that we type, I think we can all agree that United.com needs a major overhaul in the area of e-Certs (as well as many other places as evidenced by the fact that we now have a sticky thread dedicated to it)

Psst, did you know that you can adjust your preferences and set a 'quiet period' to avoid exactly that kind of wake-update? ;)

What she said ^

Question for you, Kathy... Were you able to use $-off e-certs on multi-city itineraries? IME, %-off certs do not work for that, and of course, ual.com chokes on anything other than the most basic R/T itinerary (and even on those, it doesn't give you all the available options). For this reason, %-off certs have diminished value to me... just wondering if I can expect the same with $-off certs (before I get some).

Thanks.

edited to add: when I say 'multi-city' I mean searching on ual.com under the 'multi-city' option.