Is it really possible to use E-Certs?
 

Okay United Folks...as a * Alliance Gold and U S Airways Gold Preferred at the time I have to say I am very disgusted with United Airlines and I am losing repsect for their worthless outsourced India Call Center, I called at 11:35 pm and kept trying the agent roulette game until 1:30 am Eastern...I am not going to make this a typical UA rant but thought you all should know...

I was trying to buy a Mileage Run of course ;) ^

Tampa to San Diego on December 9th...Routing was irregular but bookable multicity but is a valid roundtrip. I had one of those Goodwill $100 e certificates so I called Website Support to ask them to tab the flights in as an irregular routing but fare rules allowed this routing to be a normal valid Itin. from TPA-AAA-BBB-CCC-SAN ; SAN-AAA-TPA. Total came as $205. I wanted to cut the cost of this Mileage Run.

First Agent I called said it was a Multicity and could not be done, I wasted 35 minutes with this agent after holding for 30 minutes (ironically I was in the FT chat room and thanks to a certain few who kept me company while I was on this relay call).

Back to holding again for another 25 minutes before the second agent finally picked up, I explained everything and she went to book this until she saw the irregular routing and called it a multicity and invalid for the e-cert. I tried to explain its not a multicity(no stopovers), but a valid routing...even gave her the fare basis...she said she could not help, I ask to speak to a supervisor...she puts me on hold for 20 minutes then comes back and says she got a supervisor...

**line clicks**

**advertisement plays** Thank you for calling American Airlines...for flight information etc etc...

I C O U L D N O T F R A C K I N B E L I E V E IT...the agent had actually sent me to AA...maybe these wAArdens over at AA should be interested in knowing UA is actually sending customers their way...so are E-Certs really usable?...I think not and UA has lost my respect for the night...I'm not sure if I will even book the MR(I only need 17k to qualify for Chairmans Preferred at U S Airways :(

I had a similar experience today except it was a standard routing. I was issued 2 Silverwings E-certs today but on both united. bomb and beta.bomb it gave error messages indicating they had expired. Web support said their database showed that had expired in September even though they were issued today.

I called called Silverwings even though it was 3PM MST I was told it was told they had to wait for a email response from WHQ. They would not call directly to take care of it. I was told it was 6PM at their call center and there was no manager around that time of day. I asked where they was located and she would only say "North America". Does UA have call centers in eastern Canada or Bermuda. Or was this someone from another country that did not know the time differences?

After a lot of arguments with Silverwings I got someone who understood the problem. The Silverwings booking engine said the e-cert dates were OK. She was able to book 2 tickets for me and are giving me the 2K online booking bonii that I missed.

The second e-cert problem that I ran into today was a CS $100. It was valid for all fare classes but da bomb wanted to force it into S/T even though there were Ls available. The S/T was $120 more than the L so it would not apply the CS$100. I called web support who told me to book the S/T and they will give me a $120 credit to my card.

It to 4 hours to accomplish all this.

Im frustrated w UA sending me to AA ;)

Only during blue moons.

You're actually supposed to be able to use these certs? I thought they were given up like candy by the MP support folks to make us feel better without any real value. I'm sure UA is quite aware how useless their e-certs are. I've been had no success with the e-certs, only the paper ones.

They did it to me, too, on Ted routes.

Say what??? :confused:

There are several billion threads on e-certs problems. I've used many, many e-certs. It often takes patience and persistence to get them to work correctly. (Yeah, I've had to spend a lot of my time in order to save money. :eek: ) Some people have reported success in calling website support, others not. However, I've NEVER heard of anyone being transferred to AA! That is unbelievable....

AA should have their LCC too and call it "Bill".
"Bill and Ted".. could there be more excellent adventure? ;)

By saying that you're actually complimenting them.
It's worse than that. :mad:

Precisely, I intend to call the Cust. Relations line and let em know their agents in India are sending me to AA

When pigs fly.

I think UA took my previous reservation and applied it to a new reservation instead of the refare voucher I gave them. We'll see in a few days though.

A lot of the E-certs are from Customer Relations because of a service problem. This tends to placate the customer somewhat until they try to use them and then the customer is doubly unhappy. Not many people know all the workarounds that a lot of us do to finally get the e-cert applied.

Even when I am finally successful in getting the E-cert it leaves me unhappy. Because of my experience in post 2 above I will not be renewing my Silverwings membership.

I have had MUCH better experiences with e-certs on the beta. Did you try it there?

Tried on both, same results. Web support had also same results using their account.

Which SilverWings E-Cert was this?

They were two $75 off E-certs - part of $300 you get with membership.

The error message was that it had expired, or did it say your travel dates were incorrect?

ual.bomb and beta.bomb had slightly different error messages but were something like "your travel dates were incorrect". The da bomb web support looked up the E-cert in their database and said it showed the expiration date as Sep. 30, 2006. Whereas the SilverWings agent was able to book it.

What were your travel dates? What did the e-mail that accompanied the e-cert number say with regard to permitted travel dates?

Travel date was Nov 29, 2006. Here is one of themHowever the Silverwings T&C statebut the E-cert was rejected even before selecting a flight/fare bases. L was left off the E-cert email. But the SilverWings agent was able to book an L so I assume the email is wrong.

Found them
betaual.com

I have a $205 trip on hold...UA websupport cant help becuz I called in the tix...now ua.bomb asks for $285 in S class instead of L...GRR

Well, it's clear that you aren't allowed to use e-certs on held itineraries...

What you can do is purchase the held L ticket. You have exactly 24 hours to cancel it if things do not work out. Then call web support, give them the story about it not taking the E-cert. They will credit the difference to your card. If they won't deal, then cancel the booking.