1K agent - "You're Lying. . ."
 

Called tonight to get a ticket between LHR-DUB. Talked with the office in HNL (which btw I swear the agents who used to be at the top of their game have now become rude and nasty in so many instances - did new agents transfer there?). . .anyway. . .I asked the agent how much the flight would be since when I tried on ual.com I received a message of "we are currently unable to process this transaction, please call the international desk. . (paraphrased)"

She said that the fare would be $990 which is much more than my flight from SEA-LHR. I then asked her if I could get an award ticket on bmi? I was looking at ual.com and saw that they have an award for 15K. She said, sure, it will be 25K. I said, hmm. . I'm looking at your website and it states that it is 15K for this routing. She said "you're lying. . "

Excuse me?! I asked her if she would like me to send a screenshot of the website that shows this or if she needed the URL for the site. She said that I was lying and there is no way that the award is that amount. This went on for quite a few minutes at which point I decided to have her make a "fake" reservation so that I would be able to have the supervisor trace her at a later time. I thanked her for her time, and called back.

Spoke with a supervisor. Told her the story and her response was "well we don't like leaving the travelling public with a bad impression. .. "

She then looked in the "profile" and on the website and saw that the profile was showing that in fact it was 20K.

Does anybody know exactly what the number of miles is required on bmi for a trip from LHR-DUB? (BTW. I did a search on this forum first and could not find anything in the threads that answers this specific question). Thanks!

Secondly, how do I book this award?

All bmi itin within Europe used to be 10k.

I've used these a number of times for myself or family members recently too.

don't waste yout time

go to BMI or Aerlingus web site and buy a revenue tix

Depending on when you fly, you might get a 1 euro tix before taxes

BA still has some pretty attractive fares, though you may need to go out of LGW to get them. I priced Sept 14-19 on aa.com as sample dates and the base fare was $83 ($127 with taxes). I'd hold onto the miles if you can find fares for your dates in that price range (or lower). Using Aer Lingus out of LHR showed a $121 base fare for the same dates ($181 with taxes).

Star Alliance Award Chart:

http://www.united.com/ual/asset/Star..._chart_v2.pdf?

It shows economy class award for Europe to Europe being 20K, with an all-BD itin being "lower".

So, it appears some re-training is in order, both in knowledge and demeanor ;)

I would assume this would be booked as a *A award with the international award desk.

Pat

That's pretty poor. What I don't understand is how can UA justify charging $970 (yes, I verified this is the case number now on Orbitz on random dates) when the flights are actually on BMI and the EXACT SAME FLIGHTS only cost $183 on BMI. What gives!??!?!?!?

The people at the ICC may be incompetent, but I doubt they would call you a liar !!

Are you calling him a liar? :eek: Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

Here is the chart I reference when booking BMI award flights. http://www.united.com/page/article/0,1360,1185,00.html The only time I book an award is when I want a business class ticket as in the past I was able to get away with more carry on in biz. There isnt much cost savings a lot of time in booking an award as opposed to revenue ticket as the ticket on BMI's site is something like 5GBP and the rest of the price is in taxes and fees. The taxes and fees for an award are quite high especially since you are talking about a 45 minute flight. I am surprised they quoted you such a high price unless travel is tomorrow.

Oh, good idea on the booking so you can track it. I would email as well.

So, you are saying she is lying. Must be a UA employee thing. ;) ;) :D

Ohhh, I've had plenty of US agents call me one. Including when I was trying to explain to them that a QUP fare is not a coach fare...

BTW... Ldsant is a she.... and I know SHE would not lie.

:eek: :eek: What? I thought ldsant is a he :eek: but then SHE thought I was a SHE this whole time, so I guess we are even ;)

Sorry for any confusion, but I did not say that the OP is a liar.

Rather, my point was that though there have been numerous threads about the ICC rep's being incompetent, clueless, etc, I haven't seen anyone complain about their manners.

But here we have a trained, probably US based rep, calling elite customers liars. This is unacceptable.

I think the OP should send an email to UA, if she got the name of the 1K agent.

Last year I met a UA reservation agent in the SFO airport who said she had just been transferred to HNL from Sea. She wasn't happy but had to go since she was near retirement.