I’m certain I’m not the only one noticing issues with how United Airlines flights have been posting to MileagePlus lately. Initially, I was going to remain silent as the errors have been – until now – to my benefit, such as upgraded flights reflecting 150% EQM as if they were paid premium cabins. Now, however, things are getting really whacky.
This past week I flew on a full-fare coach ‘B’ ticket and the flight ended up posting with negative PQMs and I didn’t receive the 125% bonus redeemable miles.
I spent a bit of time over on the Flyertalk boards today reading about similar issues and it sounds like MileagePlus will be doing a sweep soon to correct the errors. According to this post, a representative admits to the problems and points to the upcoming sweep:
As I’ve been doing for years, I maintain a spreadsheet with all of my flight activity to occasionally cross-check against what the website reflects. While not as tech-savvy as the many applications out there that do it for you automatically, I think it might be beneficial for everyone to carefully monitor their United balances in the coming days and weeks in a similar fashion to help identify any posting errors.
How have you fared?
Having multiple issues, from segments not posting, posting with no miles, dxb-ist and ist-dxb posting with different # of miles? Also, called in to get paper swus mailed to me, instead they debited 2 regional’s – had to call in 4 times to get them to redeposit- they even went on to tell me that i used them!!!! with no UA flights booked!!!
Same problem. Took an upgraded flight on Mar 16. Miles have not yet posted. I called them and she said they have to manually enter everything. Ugh
Same thing has happened on my account…now you see them, now you don’t! All my bonus miles for February disappeared (should have been 100% bonus as a 1 K, and the bonus for certain fares (D, Y) etc were removed, but the PQM are correct. I’m not desperate to use them, but on the other hand, I don’t want to forget about them.
When you say: how have you “fared'” is that a pun?
@Mark: indeed it was! 😉
@robandzoe: Those were the “rollover” miles from my legacy United Mileage Plus account to… eh… Continental’s OnePass… eh… MileagePlus.
@Ken: For the time being, I’m just going to let it all ride and see what happens in the coming weeks. If I need to call, I certainly will like you did.
@Angelina: I’ll be happy for a manual entry if my miles don’t post correctly. I’m still waiting on one flight to come in… will likely have to call like you did.
I’m curious how you got 300K “non airline activity” ;0)
My points are a bit of a mess. Missing flights and EQM, 50% EQM for a Lufthansa flight that should be 100% EQM. One flight that seemingly appeared then disappeared. Roughly 25% of my EQM’s are MIA. (Also regional upgrades that don’t seem to work and now waiting 2 weeks on a confirmed trip to ticket). I have lost confidence that they can track the accumulating pile of errors across the database and each day it gets worse.
I’ve only flown six paid segments this year so far (plus three award segments), and only two post-merger, but they’ve posted 48 hours after the flight and posted correctly. Nevertheless, I am still keeping a spreadsheet as I have a lot of flights coming up and the same spreadsheet also tracks my upcoming flights.
@Levi @Deidre: Thanks for the reports. I’m now taking a screen shot and saving a PDF of my account daily until things work themselves out. My negative PQMs from this post have now been corrected, but my RDMs are still off, as are my lifetime miles.
From my experience it seems UA is trying to stop anyone from caring at all about Mileage Plus. Four attempts to credit missing miles on the Premier link have received four auto-response messages with a “Case number”. Each time I have replied using the case number for resolution but never a response.
Now booking a flight under the new combined program, I get to pay for Economy Plus seating – free for Premier before, and pay to check a bag, also free previously.
Apparently United’s idea of taking care of their frequent flyer customers is charge them until the drop out of UA altogether. Hey United, it’s working and I’m taking my 300K miles somewhere else.
Just noticed a glitch. Sometime yesterday my year to date segement count dropped from 28 to 17.5. From the looks of it, all post-merger, pre-march segments have disappeared.
@Bob: Many people are seeing weird things today… check out this Flyertalk thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-mileageplus-consolidated/1328527-april-15th-re-sweep-17.html
I have been pulling my hair for weeks due to missing United MileagePlus flight credit. I flew from IAD to LHR on March 21, 2012 on a PAID ticket. In fact, I PAID an additional $930.00 at online check-in to upgrade to business and PAID for additional miles. Both charges appeared on my credit card statement but not the corresponding miles. After waiting 15 days as instructed by the UA website, I contacted the MileagePlus Service Center. I was told that the two problems would be corrected “in 2-3 days” but to phone back in a week if the miles did not appear on my MP account. The miles did not appear, so I phoned again a week later. This time the miles I bought were manually entered in my account. As for the IAD-LHR miles, I was told that they would appear “by the end of April.” No such luck. I’ve since sent an email to the MP Service Center. No response. From what I’ve read on the net apparently the UA system after being integrated with Continental’s in March has treated paid upgrades as if the entire ticket was purchased with miles and as such ineligible for flight credit. Is anyone else struggling with this? Any suggestions?
@Edward: I would keep being persistent with Mileage Plus and/or United’s customer relations. You should definitely get your flight miles credited. I hadn’t heard about the glitch where paid upgrades post as if it were a mileage ticket until you mentioned it. Stay on them!!
Same problems here… flew a 4-segment flight, and was only credited for 3. The missing flight was Austrian Air. After sending email with scanned boarding pass to MP and getting no response for a week, I spent an hour on hold with MP waiting to talk to someone. I was told by the CSR that she’d fixed the issue and it would post within 48 hours. Called back 4 days later when it still hadn’t posted and waited another hour to be told ‘oh, that’s Austrian Air, it may take up to 15 days to post.’ Super. It’s now been about 20 days and I was just getting ready to spend another hour on hold. Just got an email back from MP saying that the miles will post within 7 days. Obviously I’m not holding my breath.
@Lisa_m: I hope they post. Good thing in your case is you now at least have an email from MP saying they’ll post. As you say, you’re not holding your breath, but at least it’s something to fall back on more than verbal conversations that aren’t documented.
lisa_m: I had five segments in the itinerary in question: IAD to LHR on United, LHR to FRA, FRA to NCE, NCE to FRA (the latter three flights on Lufthansa), and FRA to IAD on United. The miles for the Lufthansa flights appeared in my MP account with no problem. The miles for FRA to IAD and extra miles I bought were entered in my account manually. Miles for the very first segment (IAD to LHR) have not appeared at all despite an email to the MP Service Center (no response) and two calls to the MP Service Center. What do I have to do next, contact UA president Jeff Smisek?
@Edward: Sad to hear it’s so hard for United to get their own flights posted, but LH came through already. Don’t give up! Keep calling, emailing, etc.
I contacted the MileagePlus Service Center for the third time on May 3. I was PROMISED that my missing miles would be entered manually and appear in my account in 24-48 hours. Over two weeks have passed and still no miles. As a last resort I’ve sent a letter to UA president and CEO Jeff Smisek. I wonder if this will do any good.
@Edward: I truly hope you get your miles… don’t give up!
My missing miles were finally credited to my account in June. I don’t know what did trick, perhaps the letter I sent to UA president Jeff Smisek. Thanks for the support!
@Edward: Congrats on finally getting your miles!
Continental joined the star alliance a year ago after coplying with the standard of Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian and Air Canada.
For a while they really did great.
Then they merged with United!!!! What a flop!!!
Here is my last experience:
Flew from TLV via Frankfurt to JFK with Lufthansa in business and got an implacable service as usual.
Then started my United flights…..
Was booked in first class on a flight from EWR to SFO. When at the airport 3 hours before departure I received a message at the kiosk that the flight was cancelled. ( I am on their mailing list and phone messaging system)
The agent did not know about the cancellation and suggested a 5 hour delay and a middle seat in the last row of economy!!!!
So….. I called Lufthansa and they found a reroute through Denver about the same time.
But!!! Since United has not really joined the tar alliance he could not book it.
I went back to the United counter and asked for the manger. She was able to issue anew ticket after spending 45!!!! Minutes on the phone with the ticketing department.
Sine I am seasoned executive traveler I wanted to make sure the rest of my itinerary was kept in tact. Wrong!!!! It was wiped out and it took the agent another 30!!!! Minutes to get it back.
So now I am on the plane to Denver and the front toilet (first class) has no running water.
On the flight back from SFO to EWR my first class seat was stuck in the extreme up position before we took off and there was no maintenance available.
Om my flight back from EWR to TLV there was no premier check in and I waited over n hour in line or security and almost missed the flight.
When I took my first class sat I saw that the door to the toilet was locked and a sign out of order on it.
When I asked the percer she said she has another one in the back out of order for a full flight of 10 hours.
I called the captain and he said that he can do nothing. Since this is not flight safety.
Well…..
I am going to write to my Lufthansa customer service and ask them to remove United from their alliance before they start loosing their most value able customers.
Footnote :
The chairman of United comes on every flight safety video to tell his customers how much money he spent on new equipment. Well dear chairman fix the problems first since you will soon have no customers to carry on your new equipment
@Rafi: Thanks for such a detailed description of your horrible experiences. One minor thing, United was one of the founding members of Star Alliance, actually, along with Lufthansa. Hopefully things will get better, but yes… many service and other items are going terribly wrong at the moment since the merger.
flew fro LAX to Shanghai 1st class (only 2 people in cabin) after meal service NO SERVICE—toilet was locked for over 2 hours (supposedly got stuck), so I used business class toilet—-they had a nice tray with snacks and when I made a comment, I wish we had one, too—I was “offered” to use the business tray—-why have two separate classes?
Compared to LH and other international carriers, United stinks—I avoid them if possible.
Right know I trying to get Business Class Mileage credit for a recent trip to Europe on Lufthansa—I called I sent in copies—-nothing happens!!!
what has happened to the “Friendly Skies”
@Kurt: Yep, United pales in comparison to foreign-flag carriers in International First. Don’t give up on getting your miles for your LH trip. From what I hear, you’re not alone in getting miles credited. United still has a lot of improvements to make.
I’ve been trying to have my miles posted for a trip that my husband and I took from Dulles International Airport to Vienna. Every person (every month since then) I have talked to has said our miles(4447) will be posted within 10 – 15 days. The last person that I talked to on Sept. 14 said they will definitely be posted in 15 days. She even gave me her employee number if they weren’t posted. I called yesterday and no one would let me speak to her. I spoke to a supervisor who told me that no miles would be posted because they were booked in K class. Our boarding passes say they were booked in M class. The supervisor said that the M class on the boarding pass only lets the flight attendants know where you sit on the place. What a lie? I’m beside myself. I always have trouble getting miles posted on UAL. Will cancel my United Miles Plus credit card this year. Sick of them. Haven’t given up on getting miles. It’s been almost a year.
Been trying since 12/11 to get miles posted for an Austrian Air flight from Dulles to Vienna (4447 miles each ticket). From January to September I was told each month that the miles would be hand posted. Talked to a supervisor this week and was told that the miles would never be posted because they were booked in K class. My boarding pass says Class M. Supervisor says that Class M on boarding pass means nothing except the section that we were sitting on the plane (an obvious lie). Will never fly UAL again (except to use my miles) and will cancel my Mileage Plus credit card. Thanks for letting me vent.
I have the same experience as Nancy. My husband and I flew from LAX to Taipei via EVA. 7000 miles one way, we accumulated 28,000 miles total. Our boarding passes show K class which is eligible for 100% mileage credit. But United said it is H classes that will not get any mileage credit.
During our trip, I checked with United/EVA staffs at Airport Ticket counter on each leg of flight to make sure the miles would be credited properly. Every time, we were told that EVA is a partner with United and we would earn United Miles reward.
I have called/emailed United Mileage Plus many times. Each time, I had to repeat the story from the beginning. They don’t even have detailed information in their systems, and they could not connect me to someone I have talked. The staffs do not have ownership to resolve the problem. It is very frustrated to deal with United Mileage Plus. Where can I file a complaint about the horrible service?
@Marie: Sorry to hear of your troubles. Based on the earning miles page, K class on EVA (what they’re calling Economy Plus… probably not United’s E+, but rather their own Elite and Evergreen Deluxe economy products) does earn 100% mileage. Is that what you ticketed and the cabin you were seated in? Otherwise, mileage accrual looks tough except if you’re on the highest coach fares. Do you have your receipt showing your fare basis code? Unfortunately, you’ll probably be at the whim of United no matter where you complain. You can try the DOT, by clicking here.
I had 25 flights during the past 12 months that were posted to my MileagePlus account. Problems started occurring after the merger with Continental. The Mileageplus personnel need to be replaced due to these erros, blaming another airline and horrible customer service skills.
Correction to previous post: “I had 25 flights during the past 12 months that were NEVER posted to my MileagePlus account…”