Be Your Own Advocate

Here’s how it went:

First off, I had 2 awards booked together at the pre-devaluation levels. A friend and I were going to go to Thailand, but some plans changed and I was free to travel on my own. The first step was to split the reservations and redeposit miles from one of the awards. Now, since I am Silver on UA, this should have cost $125, but for some reason I was charged $200. It was easy to get that refund processed simply by going to the refunds page on the United website. The refund showed up on my credit card within about a week.

Re-booking my award and locking in the pre-devaluation rates ended up being quite the challenge. I knew that it should be possible even when changing dates, class of service, and even routing from the Flyertalk thread and from talking to others who had successfully changed their tickets. My new routing plan was a little bit more complicated than the original, so I was unable to change the flights on my own online. I checked availability by searching segment-by-segment on the United website, found and noted flights that worked for me, and called up United.

I was booking N. America – S.E. Asia in economy on the outbound (32,500 at pre-deval levels) and S.E. Asia – N. America in first on the inbound (70,000 at pre-deval levels). I was expecting my flight to price at 102,500 miles (+ taxes + a $50 change fee). The first agent I talked to on the phone initially quoted me 170,000 miles, I told him that I thought the computer was over-pricing the award. He talked to his supervisor (?), who manually priced the award at 120,000 miles, which I insisted was still over-priced. He told me that I would have to call the next day before 8:00 pm to talk to the Mileage Plus Service Director (1-800-864-8331).

The next morning I called the Mileage Plus Service Director, they said they were unable to help me and I would have to talk to reservations (UGH). I tried calling the Premier Line, but the hold time was much longer, so I eventually gave up and just called the regular line again. The second agent I talked to saw the notes from my call the previous day and priced the award at 120,000 miles. I said to him that I thought the ticket should cost 102,500 miles, and after looking at it closer he told me that the correct price should actually be 170,000 miles (UGH). I asked to speak with his supervisor. His supervisor initially priced the award at 120,000 as well, and when insisting that it should cost 102,500, he also concluded that it should cost 170,000 miles. At this point I had been on the phone for well over an hour, and it was time for dinner with my family, so it gave me a great excuse to hang up.

Before having dinner with my family I sent a quick request to the UA Twitter Team. I tend to have a lot of luck with customer service on twitter, especially with KLM/Air France, so I decided it was worth a shot. I explained the situation to them and what I thought it should be pricing out as, and why. This was their response: “Your current routing via Europe requires an additional 120K miles, 40K on the outbound & 80K for the return.” I asked why routing via Europe required additional miles, I was unaware that this was the case, and I knew I was under the Maximum Permitted Mileage (MPM) for my itinerary. United’s response was: “Because you’re traveling to two different regions & it’s not in legal routing to do it as one award. Thus, more miles are required.” 

I called BS on that, and after dinner decided to call the web support line (1-800-396-1751). This line usually routes through the Philippines call center and people on Flyertalk had mentioned particularly high levels of success in talking with them. I was initially connected with an agent who stated the cost of my ticket was 120,000 miles. I explained to her why I thought it should be 102,500 miles. She said she was unable to manually price the award and connected me with her supervisor. The supervisor initially looked at the award and also quoted 120,000 miles (which at this point I was just about willing to pay). After explaining the situation to him, he finally agreed to manually price the award at 102,500 miles, and told me that he would make a note that I was not allowed to change the ticket again without repricing at the new levels.

In conclusion, getting this award booked was a huge pain in the butt, and I spent way too many hours on the phone with United over Easter weekend. Also, I listened to enough Rhapsody in Blue to last me for about a year. BUT, I did get my award booked, and because I was persistent, and knew the rules related to my award, I was able to get the correct pricing of 102,500 miles. Saving those 17,500 miles was definitely worth the time spent on the phone.

Sidenote: It is very important to stay calm and be nice when talking to the airline agents! This would have been disastrous if I had gotten a bad note left in my record.