paleri

I booked a flight using miles, the flight was cancelled so my miles were retuned to my mileage account. I just now discovered a $100 fee charged to my CC account for transferring miles back to my account. I called customer service to ask for a refund since I was not at fault and their response was "Impossible, but we will send you a $100 certificate." I don't think this is fair, is there another avenue I could pursue to have the $100 fee refunded?

Thanks!

Apologies if this is covered in another thread, I searched and couldn't find any reference to this situation.

mahasamatman

Welcome to FT, paleri!

I see two options. First, there's the FT mantra - if you don't get the answer you like, call again. Second, you could dispute the charge with your credit card company.

Good luck!

camachinist

Seems odd that they'd arbitrarily cancel a whole itinerary just because one flight was canceled....

More information?

In any event, document things and send it to your CC company and dispute the charge. You heard "impossible" once, so have attempted to resolve. Doesn't preclude you from calling again, and you can always close the dispute once the correct answer appears.

Pat

rjque

This is a great example of how poorly UA handles things when they mess something up.

pinniped

First of all, they shouldn't cancel an entire itin because a segment canceled. They should rebook you on an alternate flight.

Of course, if the alternate flight presents so much of a delay that the trip no longer makes sense, you should be able to ask to have it canceled and get your money back.

I've had them refund nonrefundable funds directly back to the credit card in the event of a cancellation. Call again.

Nicholas

Last week, I also discovered a $100 charge on my VISA. I'd flown the ticket as originally issued, no changes at all, and the charge was attached to the coupon for a flight that was an hour late. 1K service director said an agent "pushed the wrong button" and promised to refund it. It's been a week since then...

paleri

This was a flight to Mex, and they were unable to reschedule an outbound flight for 32 hours, so I had to cancelled the entire itinerary as the event I was scheduled to attend was for that evening. Since the ticket was booked using miles I was not eligible for rebooking on another airline. I ended up booking a last minute ticket with Aeromexico myself - which cost me $650.

ORD4R

I agree with what others have said, dispute the charge immediately with your credit card company. You will win the dispute.

camachinist

Trip in vain. If at the airport under such circumstances, attempt to endorse, even though technically award tickets aren't supposed to be endorseable.

If you explained the circumstances as you did here and were denied, I'd provide the same explanation to your credit card company and wait for the results. No sense in frustrating yourself further.

Pat

wcj1

I think the OP needs to call Refunds, not Customer Service. Seems dumb that Customer Service cannot fix it, but that seems to be the trend.

BillJ

igotpipped

I had an entire reward itinerary cancelled earlier this year because United had flight delays. I later noticed a $100 charge on my MP Visa card, called the 1k desk and was told that was a charge for transferring miles back to the account, but they would waive it for me since I was 1K. Guess what, the charge did get credited back to my MP card, but not before 5-6 phone calls and a good 3 monthly billing cycles!!!

rwmiller

I guess my wife and I made out better, if you can call it that. I had rebooked two saver awards from IAD to PDX for a last minute trip to visit my Mother. It was only to be a weekend trip so we left Friday evening. Because it was last minute and a rebooking of a previous trip, I had to pay the $75/ticket last minute fee and a $100/ticket itinerary change as we could not get the exact routing (return through SFO vice DEN). Anyway, after our flight got to DEN about 30 minutes late (around 7 PM), my phone lit up with pages saying our connecting flight had been delayed until 1145 PM. I called my Mother and let her know we would be sleeping in a little on Saturday but to expect us to visit. Well, after waiting until around midnight, the GA announced we were ready to board. At that very moment, the Captain came out, grabbed the microphone and announced he was cancelling the flight because the crew would exceed their awake hours limit. What a happy crowd

What was worse was that he said he had told his management that his crew could not support 4 hours earlier so they could have cancelled the flight then giving us a chance to book another flight. Well, after about an hour of waiting in line we got our hotel room and booked a flight back to IAD on Saturday as we would not have gotten to PDX until 6 pm and we were leaving Sunday at 6 am.

After arriving back at IAD, sans luggage, I called UA Customer Service. They recredited 15K of the 25K miles for each of us and gave us a credit for $75 (which I couldn't use for the international flight I just booked). At least they didn't charge us to put the miles back in the account. The agent originally offered only 10K miles but gave us 15K when I asked for more. I could not get any better compensation so we ended up out 20K miles total and $350 for a trip to Denver airport and back to IAD.

At least UA found our luggage and had it personally delivered - normally for the distance we live from the airport they would have sent FedEx taking 2 extra days.

Another great day in The Friendly Skies

Bob

im-headed-west

They must really push their agents to apply that $100 fee. If they need to reverse it ... so what. Some won't catch it and that's extra cash in UA's pocket.

I've been charged the $100 return miles fee 2 of 3 times I've cancelled awards in the last year and shouldn't have 'cause of 1K status.

Their customer service is worthless.

Just document as well as you can and dispute with your credit card.

oswaldjacoby

The best way to complain to United is not to write United at all, but to email a complaint to the DOT complaint hotline and have the DOT forward the complaint to United. The WSJ confirmed this recently in an article noting that the most effective way to get the attention of an airline is to email the Department of Transportation (DOT) consumer division. These are forwarded to the airline for response and are much more likely to get something more than a form response. In the case of United, unless you are GS or 1K, you are virtually assured of a form response if you complain to United through the regular channels. The DOT is virtually your only chance of getting a serious response.

The DOT email is [email protected]

Good luck!

rwmiller

I can second oswaldjacoby's comment. After reading his post, I sent in a complaint to the DoT about the problem noted in my previous post. Today I got an email from UA saying that they will be crediting 10,000 miles to each MP account (thereby returning all miles deducted for the trip) and sending a check for $200.

Bob