Comments on: A Surprisingly Painless Interaction with United Reservations

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:15:56 +0000

I booked a flight using miles with United on the telephone because it was an open jaw ticket and their web site would not allow that. I was told that because it couldn’t be done on the web site, they would not charge me the telephone reservation fee. Later, the phone reservation fee showed up on my credit card. I called and complained. After 15 minutes or so, they agreed to refund the phone reservation fee. They said they would do it in 7-10 business days. I waited 10 business days. No refund. Called again. Another 15 minutes on the phone. They insisted that it had been refunded and to take it up with the credit card company. I called the credit card company and put it in as a disputed charge. A day or two later I got the refund.

Another time with United I had a flight with an overcharge. Went though the same process. This time, I had to dispute the whole flight charge (like $286) even though I was only disputing about $39. This was an upcharge for Economy Plus, which I paid for but United couldn’t deliver on because of a cancelled flight. They didn’t dispute that they owed me the $39, they just couldn’t process the refund and get it to show up on my credit card. We went back and forth until it finally got fixed. United cost themselves a lot of money in terms of labor time instead of just issuing the credit simply, quickly and efficiently.

My experience with credit card companies is that if they electronically receive a transaction that says “credit your account for $xx,” they do so that day and it shows up on your credit card on-line the next day. At worst, they do it the next day and it shows up the following day. They delays all come from United not being willing to part with the money. I sometimes wonder if they do this on purpose, hoping you will forget and then they will get to keep the money.

On the other hand, you book a flight on Southwest and the price of the flight goes down. You go to their web site, enter the confirmation number and your name. You rebook yourself on to the same flight and you get a ticketless travel funds credit. You use that ticketless travel funds credit on another flight, without any drama. Most times you don’t even have to talk to an agent, but when you do, they are friendly and helpful, and based here in America instead of India. (An agent taught me the rebook on to the same flight trick — previously I was canceling and booking a new ticket)

If you’ve got a fully refundable ticket at Southwest, you can cancel it on the web site and the refund shows up on your credit card in 1-3 days. Again, no drama, just smooth, efficient and fair handling of the transaction.

And that, plus the whole change fee issue are the major reasons why I made Southwest my primary carrier over United when Southwest came to Denver.

By: Brad

Brad — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 02:39:15 +0000

Good Luck getting that check. I had United tell me once that they were going to send a check after a flight to London was canceled, and i rebooked domestically. Anyways, it took me 2 hours and 12 different agents to actually get them to put the check in the mail. Also, if you scream at the automated agent, it hangs up on you.

By: Ron

Ron — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:31:34 +0000

I once bought a fully refundable ticket on United and then had to change the date. After a 45-minute phone conversation, the agent said he couldn’t change the date, only refund the ticket. I took the money, and eventually flew on a different airline.

To be fair, part of why it took so long was that the agent had to split the reservation first (it was originally a reservation for 4 people, and I was the only one who needed to fly on a different day). Throughout the phone conversation there was the sound of a lot of typing on the agent’s side — I got the impression he was typing a plain-text record of our whole conversation. And I don’t think he was a good typist. He was very friendly, though he appeared clueless at times (it took him multiple attempts to verify that my ticket was indeed refundable).

By: The Global Traveller

The Global Traveller — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 05:40:34 +0000

You are right that depressed expectations keeps us happy about service that should be standard not the exception.

My WN schedule very similar. I had slightly longer turns and had the 737-300 o/n in LAX instead of SLC (in order to allow for cross-connecting flights at LAS).

By: CF

CF — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 01:21:37 +0000

Bobber – That’s impressive. I need to get some of your call center kharma for sure.

Randy – Yeah, I’m not so sure how much I like Twitter, but I do use it to mention things that I don’t think deserve a full post. I don’t spend a ton of time on it though. It can suck you in if you’re not careful!

By: enplaned

enplaned — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:39:53 +0000

Giddy as a school girl, not giddy like a school girl.

By: Randy

Randy — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:27:06 +0000

Yep, haven’t made the jump to Twitter quite yet. Will check that out eventually. After much non-revving on UA in many various classes, I have seen the best and worst on display and most of the time the crew had no clue who you are when you first got on. On average is is decent and business like, but not as friendly as I have seen on Air New Zealand or Virgin Atlantic, regardless of class.

By: Bobber

Bobber — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:44:21 +0000

I know, Cranky – but I even find their call centres bareable. They even called ME(!) to tell me my upgrade had cleared (months in advance) which considering I am the lowest tier of Elite status was impressive (well, it impressed me). Call centres suck anyway, regardless of the industry involved – the UA ones in India are no worse and no better than any others (in my experience).

By: CF

CF — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:28:33 +0000

JM – It’s entirely possible that training and agent selection is getting better, but it still requires United to loosen up and let agents have some authority to make decisions. I doubt they’ve done that yet, but maybe that will change when they get more comfortable.

Randy – I did post their contest on Twitter (follow me, if you’d like), but I didn’t post about it on the blog. For the game, you had several restrictions. You had one 737-300 and two 737-700s. You also had some cities that they wouldn’t fly the 737-300 that you had to work in, and there were curfews. So here’s what I did:

737-300
SLC 8a LAX 850a
LAX 915a PHX 1030a
PHX 11a LAS 1205p
LAS 1230p SMF 155p
SMF 225p SAN 345p
SAN 410p LAS 515p
LAS 545p SLC 8p

737-700 #1
BWI 755a MCI 945a
MCI 1015a OAK 1210p
OAK 1245p SAN 210p
SAN 235p SMF 405p
SMF 435p SNA 555p
SNA 620p SMF 745p
SMF 810p SNA 930p

737-700 #2
SNA 7a SMF 825a
SMF 850a SNA 1015a
SNA 1040a SMF 1205p
SMF 1235p LAS 150p
LAS 215p BWI 955p

They kept this a lot more simple than the tarmac issue you mentioned at LAX. There’s no question this game was easy compared to real life.

Bobber – I’m talking about problems on the phone with them and not on the planes in this particular post.

David G – My understanding is that the ones that are moving are the customer relations lines and not reservations.

By: David G.

David G. — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:29:22 +0000

Good news is that I’ve heard they are relocated their phones to U.S.
I live in Maui & use my miles to go inter island & cannot book online so must use call center in India or wherever & pay operator fee. That was very difficult due to geographic proximity, language, etc. So now I just go to airport for all my United bookings other than ones available on-line & I get a real knowledgeable person face to face—-works for me.
Aloha, Dave