DOT Complaints for UA HKG Mistake Fare - Collaboration on Content, Process, Actions

I'm starting this separate thread from the main thread which have been filled with debates regarding morality, treatment of passengers/elites by UA, IT system discussions, etc. A similar thread was closed on TOBB.

The subject for this thread is *only* information germaine to the filing and management of DOT complaints for the HKG mistake fare issue. Please keep this thread on topic. If you would like to rant about topics unrelated to the filing and management of DOT complaints, please use the other threads.

I'll update this OP with high-level information and snapshot statuses if we have any.

Key references

• Link to DOT complaint form: http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/escomplaint/es.cfm

What information should you include?

• Your ticket and/or reservation numbers
• Record of any communication (or lack thereof) from United after your reservation was ticketed
• Confirmation email or PDF receipt

Example complaint from FTer colpuck (do not copy directly!)

Response to a user on TOBB is below.

It looks like the sticking point might be what the "full price" was and whether it was paid (emphasis below is mine).

And, as expected, UA is claiming that the full price was never paid because the points were never taken from accounts. Sure, that is not the customer's fault, but that does seem to be at least one angle they are playing. Might be a silly technicality that the customer cannot avoid, but it also might be enough for them to get away with it.

skyhook, you may wish to remove your name from the email response you received.

Not sure about anyone else, but I could not upload copies of files to the DoT. I kept getting an error

Oops, sorry I didn't clarify! That was the username of the person on TOBB who posted the response. No harm done, but thanks for the catch!

A ruling of that nature would threaten to make the new law useless for its primary purpose, as it would seem to be extremely easy to build a very deceptive practice around a policy of collecting incomplete payment or partial billing. Regulating this sort of thing is very much akin to squeezing a balloon. Every new squeeze increases the pressure until a loophole opens up.

I think it is highly unlikely that airlines are going to engineer their systems to collect payment in multiple steps rather than all at once solely to protect themselves from this sort of situation. The net value wouldn't work IMO.

So, has anyone other than Lewende from FT received a response from DOT that can be shared? Curious that the analyst would respond to one person but not others...

If you PM me, I can post it "anonymously" if you don't want your MP account to be linked to your DOT complaint.

I was thinking more along the lines of the sketchy tour operators and such hiking prices post-purchase intentionally that I believe were presented as the impetus behind the law in the first place. I agree legit operators won't do this.

Question when UA cancelled my reservation yesterday they refunded 8miles to my UA account would that count as full payment since they charge my credit card and refunded my 8 miles? Weird thing is they never took the 8 miles on my account I guess they gave me 8 miles for all my trouble lol... Maybe I can add that to my DOT complaint that they refunded my 8 miles to my account...

I don't see any reason not to include it, especially since it is a refund for the full amount of the fare quoted during your purchase.

Has anyone else received 4/8/12 mile refunds? Seems like a huge component of the DOT interpretation of whether the tickets were "fully paid for"

By the way, thanks to everyone for staying on topic! Let's keep this thread to discussions directly related to filing/managing DOT complaints. Thank you!

No mile refunds. The other interesting consideration here is who owns (and controls) the miles in the first place.

The sketchy operators are only allowed to raise the price if they include a disclaimer during the original booking. They could cancel on folks similar to this situation, I suppose, but I also don't believe the DoT would tolerate it in the same way.

In that the current systems work HIGHLY in our favor, particularly with complex awards on the edge of being legitimate I disagree strongly with this view.

You have to make sure they are in the right format. The website tells you when you try and upload a non accepted format.

I think it was just a glitch at the time I tried. I did both JPEG and PDF, none worked. I think it went through now though.

Ok I had one reservation that should be this case

Someone who has filed a DOT complaint may want to point out that on multi-city bookings, there is no mileage amount displayed during the booking process on the itinerary selection page.

It could make a whole another case since I wouldn't know the break down of the miles needed until the last page

I received the same.form letter (email). This appears to be going out to everyone who filed

I filed a complaint last night and did not receive the form letter.

Why? COdbaUA collects an upgrade co-pay at the time of request for an upgrade which will waitlist and as such is being paid for a service it has not yet provided thus getting an interest free loan without documentation (and then one has to wait for, and in some cases fight for a refund if the waitlisted upgrade doesn't clear).

There are a number of reasons why not collecting full payment on the tickets as quickly as possible is a bad idea for the company. I doubt they're going to change that because they made a mistake on an award flight.

United has the best online award search function of all the domestic airlines. I sure hope they are not penalized for a small technical glitch. If they are fined because a small group of people complain about this obvious technical mistake, I could see them slowing down development or even take away some of the booking features.

+1. The NH 787's were bookable online days before agents were able to book them!

The law is meant to prevent deceptive business practices. I would hardly call this deceptive especially when people knowingly book the tickets under the assumption that it was a mistake. I think this would set a bad precedent and encourage airlines to take a more risk adverse stance which will ultimately hurt all consumers.

I think the end result is a compromise - ie. here is a voucher for $50 for future travel.

The sad thing is that might have been enough if UA had just come out and said that from the get go.

But rather they chose an aggressive posture which only served to antagonize the average (read: reasonable person who could have been sympathetic to UA's position) and galvanize a harsher response from their customers.

Regardless of the issues surrounding the ticket, a *clear* mistake UA made was how they choose to address the situation as they arguable made it worse than it had to be, IMHO.