A MileagePlus member tried to book an award ticket on the United Airlines website. They needed 193,000 more miles than they had in their account. United’s website suggested they buy the miles. They transferred the points in from Chase Ultimate Rewards instead.
It turns out that the award space – for business class travel on EVA Air from Chicago to Singapore via Taipei – was phantom. The United website showed it as available, but the space wasn’t really there. So after the customer transferred the points into their United account and tried to book it, the website errored out.
The space still showed up as available. They tried with another web browser. Still errors. They tried over the phone, and an agent said that the space didn’t exist. They asked to have their points sent back to Chase. This was refused. Now the customer has filed a complaint (.pdf) with the Department of Transportation.
DOT is charged with preventing unfair, deceptive and predatory practices in the airline industry. United offered a ticket for sale on its website. It tried to sell the customer miles to purchase the ticket. The airline got paid for the points transferred in (by Chase). They couldn’t sell the ticket, and wouldn’t give the points back.
And it is possible for a loyalty program to return points to a bank transfer currency! For instance,
- When Air France KLM Flying Blue chose not to honor 13,500 mile business class awards that they’d sold (for most customers), they let flyers who had transferred points in from bank programs move those points back.
- In the past I had frustrations dealing with Air Canada Aeroplan over phantom Air China first class award space. When points had already been transferred (after an agent confirmed the availability was real over the phone), Aeroplan processed the points back to Membership Rewards with no fuss. They had a process for this, and used it.
When you check an airline’s website for award availability, and the space is there, you’re relying on that information in making the transfer. If the space is gone because the airline removed it, or because someone else took the space, in the few minutes it took for your transfer… well, that’s a risk that you take.
However when you transfer the points relying on what was displayed on the website, and the availability is still there, but it turns out that the website’s display was wrong… then you’ve been done dirty. You relied on the airline’s representations in making the transfer. The airline gets paid for the miles. It may have been an innocent mistake, but if they keep the money and refuse to return the miles, that’s pretty fraudulent.
The airline was wrong, the customer should be restored to their original position as it’s no fault of their own. But that is extra work and airlines don’t usually handle exception work very well.
So this gets punted to the Department of Transportation. Historically DOT has has made noises about regulating frequent flyer programs. This came after Senator Dick Durbin prodded them, largely as revenge for airlines opposing his bill to reduce credit card interchange (and to undermine their claims about the value of programs which would be hurt by his bill). It’s unlikely any new rules will be enacted prior to the end of the first Biden administration.
Here the customer submitted a formal complaint that requests a DOT ruling. Most members would file an online DOT consumer complaint which escalates the handling of issues and prompts a higher level response from the airline – often good for resolving an individual case, but that doesn’t create a precedent.
(HT: @WandrMe)
Unrelated/related: when is someone going to sue for precedent on that monthly credit card credits. They closing they’re monthly but you really only get 25 days to use them since they base them on posting date instead of transaction date. Of course the consumer only has control over transaction date and print is entirely within corporate control and thus can be used to ensure credits fall on the wrong side for profit.Technically maybe it could even be accelerated if a consumer has already used that month’s credit to reduce chances the next month’s is used.
Discovery on this would be interesting: how many credits are forfeited per year because posting vs transaction date?
I hope the MP member is successful. This same thing has happened to me.
Airlines should do their best to avoid phantom award space, but no airline can guarantee an award ticket from another airline will be available until it receives confirmation from the other airline, in real time. The plaintiff made the mistake of not checking multiple sources for the availability of the award tickets before transferring a large number of points from Chase (not to mention that they shouldn’t have used United for the redemption in the first place).
There possibly could be 1 of 2 positive outcomes from this if it’s found favorable to the plaintiff:
1) This establishes a valid reason for refunding the miles back to points
2) This could force airlines to fix or figure out the the phantom award issue
However, what’s likely is that UA will either just pull partner awards for online booking, or make a disclaimer on every award page stating phantom availability may result in inability to book, and award miles are not refundable.
I suspect this isn’t just a typical customer and the question is whether the DOT will take it up.
This will be regulation by a million cuts which is why it is better for an airline to recognize that resolution of customer complaints (behind the scenes) is far better than forcing a governmental mandate.
Given how prevalent social media is, there is no longer such a thing as a “private settlement” with a customer. Perhaps UA is right that forcing an administrative answer is best – but they run a high risk that they will lose but so will everyone else.
This happened to me, slightly differently. I had to buy an emergency international ticket to avoid a visa issue for my partner. United showed the partner space, and let me actually book the award. But it never ticketed because one of the legs was phantom availability. They just kept telling my partner to wait at check-in and the ticket would come through, until it was too late to look at other flights, and then they investigated. Then they asked her to pay $2k in cash to get on the plane. Uh, no thanks.
I wrote United corporate and they gave the miles back to chase as well as provided other consideration.
If the customer took this to trial and I was on the jury, I’d value actual damages as the 1:1 dollar spend to recover those miles, $193,000 Plus damages for their time to argue. United should make this right, get a $20 / hr employee to spend 30 minutes returning the points.
I had this same issue trying to book SFO-PNH with United, traveling on EVA. There was a lot of award availability but ALL phantom. This is so prevalent that there are Reddit threads on it. Are airlines allowed to knowingly offer unavailable products?
I ran into this issue before on United and after a lot of pushing and prodding, along with the reps management calling the other airline to get the space made available, I was able to book, but it took a look of pushing.
Dick Durbin needs to keep out of it, that’s for sure. He ruins everything he touches in this arena.
Had this exact issue with a Lifemiles and an Ethiopian flight. And they admitted that they knew about the problem booking on that airline. Still told to pound sand – good luck getting Lifemiles to do anything even simple, yet alone complicated.
Not the first time a complainant with the name on this complaint has filed a DOT complaint
https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer-protection/order-dismissal-2018-5-22-mike-borsetti-v-american-airlines
I hope the MileagePlus member wins BIG and that United gets slapped hard enough by the DOT so they don’t repeat this type of bad customer service.
Airlines often misbehave and need to be ORDERED to do the right thing.
Due to this ongoing trend, if I met a random airline executive at a social event, part of me would automatically assume he’s a selfish jerk.
I think there also needs to be regulation on the credit card points programs regarding transfers. Currently they transfer the vast majority of points immediately, so you think you can count on them. But sometimes something goes wrong and it takes up to 5 days. So you’re screwed in the same way as this customer was, with points stuck somewhere you don’t want them. They should not be able to just say “up to 5 days” to cover themselves from all liability. They should have a realistic timeframe, and in the few cases that something goes wrong they should allow the customer to pull their points back.
Tough not to sympathize with the customer.
I like the way the plaintiff referenced this quote. 🙂
“A statement by a spokesperson indicates the Department’s new willingness
to take action in cases involving loyalty programs.”(8)
8. “We plan to carefully review complaints regarding loyalty programs and exercise our authority to investigate airlines for unfair and deceptive practices that hurt travelers as warranted,” a department spokespersons aid. “DOT officials are actively meeting with U.S. airlines and gathering more information on this issue.”
Exclusive: US scrutinizing airline frequent flyer programs, Reuters, 22 December 2023
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-scrutinizing-airline-frequent-flyer-programs-2023-12-21/
United miles don’t expire (presently)
Not the best outcome but also NBD.
I moved 150k speculatively for an aspirational reward. It never came to be, my miles sit safe in UAs amazing platform (sarcasm).
I get that my situation was different, but this complaint is largely a waste of everyone’s time. Agree United could have been more accomodating.
United will be trying to tell the DOT that this was an isolated circumstance.
IF THIS HAS HAPPENED TO ANYONE, IT IS IMPORTANT YOU LET THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION KNOW. The form is at https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/DOT-OST-2024-0034-0001
Thank you!
Wow, I had this exact same issue about six months before this guy in January 2023. I transferred 53,000 miles from Chase to United, and purchased another 5,000, to book a round-trip ticket from Taipei to the US and back that was priced between 75k and 80k miles. The flight was leaving in 72 hours and the return ticket had failed to issue due to a problem with an EVA codeshare, so I ended up having to book a different flight. United refunded me for the 5,000 miles I bought but kept insisting it was impossible to send the miles back to Chase. I talked to Chase, I talked to United, and I filed a consumer complaint with the DOT but they still refused to refund the miles. I eventually spent 55,000 of them on a one-way trip at a later date but it obviously wasn’t as good of a deal as the original flight I wanted.
From a technical perspective, the phantom inventory issue may be very hard to fix. Any system can have glitches, and if an airline is interfacing with a lot of partners, the problem might well be outside their control. It wouldn’t benefit us if UA drops some partners who often have decent inventory, but may glitch. I’ve seen phantom inventory when booking Etihad via AA, but that is preferable to not having Etihad at all as a partner.
I personally consider it to be one of the breaks of the game and am generally more concerned about the possibility that the inventory might disappear in the time the transfer takes place. Also, since UA now offers free cancellations, I can end up with miles even after purchase if I cancel on seeing a better deal. For a major airline like UA, I’d use up the miles in 1-2 years anyway.
That being said, I’m surprised UA didn’t quietly transfer the miles back if the phantom inventory was established.
@Tony:
> Airlines should do their best to avoid phantom award space, but no airline can guarantee an award ticket from another airline will be available until it receives confirmation from the other airline, in real time.
If they a problem comes up and they can’t issue the ticket, they should allow the customer to reverse the point transfer. They should also fix the problem so it doesn’t happen again. I had the exact same issue with the exact same partner airline (EVA) in January 2023, nine months before this guy. I filed a consumer complaint with the DOT and United just told me again they wouldn’t send me the points back.
> The plaintiff made the mistake of not checking multiple sources for the availability of the award tickets before transferring a large number of points from Chase
This is unreasonable. The airline’s website should be accepted as a primary source of truth.
> (not to mention that they shouldn’t have used United for the redemption in the first place).
United obviously duped this person into transferring his miles by making him think he was getting a good deal of some sort. This is no way to do business.
This is the exact situation that happened to me.
Was looking to book two tickets LAX to TPE on EVA, business (Royal Laurel class).
Went on United, saw award availability, transferred Chase UR points over.
Tried to book, couldn’t.
Called UA support. They told me about this phantom inventory problem.
I wasn’t happy, but despite multiple protests, they said they couldn’t refund the points to Chase.
Now I have a ton of miles stuck on United.
This flight was shown on the United website when searching for a particular destination/particular dates and appeared to be a good deal. I am not sure how exactly one checks other websites for United partner availability. — maybe Gary can fill us in. I actually booked it & flew, so it is not all imaginary.
I’m glad someone did this. I had a similar issue for multiple days a couple of years ago and called the 1K line but they didn’t seem to care.
I had the same issue with American miles and Japan Airways regarding phantom availability for business class. So, I am always really, really, really careful before I transfer any points from Ultimate Rewards Chase to any program. But I sure do love Ultimate Rewards points!
Just like booking at an airline website is often best for tickets, using miles on the airline they were obtained on is best for compatibility. I have used EVA miles to reduce ticket prices and JetBlue miles to reduce JetBlue tickets. My wife and I have flown for almost free LAX to BKK rt several times on NW from mileage. I used what was left of NW miles plus bought a few to get rid of the NW miles on another rt trip. I have mileage on Delta and United that I may never use as they devalue faster than I accumulate. I wish that they would pay down part of a ticket with miles. Once they are getting some cash I think the glitches such as phantom tickets will disappear.
The complaint link doesn’t work.
The DOT Complaint Link: https://viewfromthewing.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/borsetti_ual_complaint.pdf
To me, the most important paragraph in the complaint is #24: “By shifting the cost of its underinvestment in technology to consumers, United has a diminished economic incentive to address any issues this causes, adversely affecting the public interest.” I saw the same issue when I fixed captioning standards. Without the FCC mandating caption standards, vendors had no incentive to upgrade their captioning software, so they didn’t. Once standards were created, captions improved.
The DOT needs to mandate online standards that if you advertise a price, unless it is an obvious mistake fare, then you must sell the seat at the rate advertised. Only then, will the airlines have an incentive to upgrade their software.
For all the spamming these airlines hawk with their credit cards and loyalty / reward programs and mileage purchases, sure seems like a valid reason to rake them. What happens if the person bought UA miles instead for this specific redemption? The onus should never be on the consumer to cross check partner airlines to confirm availability indeed exists. How is this behavior even normalized?
Sure, phantom availability is difficult to resolve. What’s not difficult is are 2-way mile transfers, which in fact already exists with these carriers. Since they love nickle and diming, just charge a mileage or $ fee after 1-2 hours (or some other timeline) post-redemption to revert the transfer.