Comments on: United’s Paper Vouchers Must be Costly

By: Brett

Brett — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:25:45 +0000

That is odd. United does have e-vouchers and paper ones.. i don’t know why they dont just stick the the electronic ones.. also you can redeem your voucher via mail..but safer to go to the airport..they claimed not to have recieved one i mailed and was a big mess

By: Aaron

Aaron — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:05:38 +0000

What bugs me about the paper voucher is that to my knowledge, United has no way of tracking how many of them I have out there. They are usually sent to the address of the credit card used to purchase the ticket, which for me can be several different locations since I use different cards for work and leisure travel. So not only might I have paper vouchers piling up in different places, but UA can’t even tell me where / when they sent anything.

I don’t care that I have to go to the airport to use them–I spend enough time in airports anyway–but I’d at least like to have some idea of what I have without referencing a stack of paper.

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:02:07 +0000

One option seems to be to wait for an electronic miscellaneous document server; second option could be to automatically process the refund using back office robotics, deduct the original cancellation fee, enter a fake segment, extend the life of the PNR and then cancel it after desired expiration date; then you effectively get an e-Voucher containing the residual stored value that is much more efficient than the paper based way of doing this. Using the PNR as a credit shell means you have a stored value facility that is fully compliant with existing revenue accounting processes at an airline – and no expensive card stock.

By: Jay

Jay — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 23:23:04 +0000

“As it was about $25 I just gave up, since it would be a pain to redeem sort of like this voucher you have.”

I’m guessing UA wasn’t all broken up about it. Just think…..$25 here…..$25 there….

By: JK

JK — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:14:35 +0000

And we complain about our government being inefficient and paperwork-crazy!

Reminds me of the good old days, filing my set of airline air fare/rules tariffs, page after page, revised page after revised page, most with those immortal words:

“(THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK)”

491st Revised Page UA-216-FF, No Substantive Change on this Page, Correction No, 19, (Printed in U.S.A.)

Now, we have automated boarding pass machines that ask us to “check” that we have read, and understand(?) the contract of carriage, whether we would like to pay $302.30 to upgrade, whether we might not want to pay for additional miles to be earned on this trip and, of course, would we like to apply for a Chase Visa card.

Progress!

By: gobluetwo

gobluetwo — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:45:33 +0000

@Neil Corman,

It’s not really all that hard to redeem. You can make the reservation online and ask to apply the voucher, in which case they will waive the phone booking fee. Then, they give you your options to redeem the voucher – visit an airport ticketing counter or mail it in to their Detroit center. Turnaround via mail is stunningly fast. Mine was applied within 58 hours of dropping it into a mailbox in Chicago. There is a Flytertalk thread with similar tales.

By: Neil Corman

Neil Corman — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:01:18 +0000

At least you got something in the mail. I did a refare on United about a year ago and never received a travel credit which was stated would be sent my way in the mail. As it was about $25 I just gave up, since it would be a pain to redeem sort of like this voucher you have.

By: Feldspar Goldstein

Feldspar Goldstein — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 22:43:20 +0000

Well, one thing you can say for UAL is that all pass travel (both non-rev and positive space) is electronic. That is one area where UAL is better than SWA. (SWA 226 – UAL1!)

By: CF

CF — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:01:00 +0000

Oliver – That’s initially what happened to me. I had a credit and I was able to apply that over the phone for a new ticket. I made sure to keep my ticket number since I’d run into this problem before. But the new ticket didn’t use my entire credit, so they sent the difference on paper.

By: Oliver

Oliver — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:29:49 +0000

By the way, UA doesn’t in all cases issue a stack of paper. I cancelled a non-refundable ticket last year, and the remaining value (after subtracting the change fee) could easily be applied via the phone to a new ticket simply by giving the ticket agent the old ticket number. It was “stored on account” for several months, but I had to make sure I kept track of the original ticket number (not record locator as those get recycled).

And my online refare refunds all went back to my credit card account — no paperwork involved. Of course, that’s now likely a thing of the past with the 150 “refare fee”.