United Airlines Starts Awarding 30,000 Miles To Customers Caught In This Week’s Disruptions

by Gary Leff

United Airlines passengers inconvenienced by the carrier cancelling thousands of flights and delaying thousands more this week discovered a message in their inbox awarding them 30,000 miles for their trouble today – an effort to generate goodwill when even their own Chief Executive Officer was unable or unwilling to trust them with his travels.

Customers will receive an email next week with instructions on how to claim the miles.

Here’s the message: (HT: Paul H)

Southwest Airlines sent out 25,000 points after its Christmas meltdown. United needed to send out more after devaluating their miles multiple times when they thought no one was looking during the pandemic and doing so again just six weeks ago.

While United blames the FAA and weather for its woes, it’s the failure to recover its operation that puts this debacle squarely at their feet of responsibility. Southwest Airlines stepped up to reimburse actual out of pocket expenses incurred by travelers – for lodging and meals and for alternate transportation. United has been politically savvy, aided by its chief communications officer who was White House Spokesperson under President Obama. They haven’t been chided to do the same by Secretary Buttigieg.

Southwest’s 25,000 points was on top of reimbursement, while United customers are on the hook for hotels.

Were you caught in United’s meltdown this week? Did you receive 30,000 miles and does that cover your damages that they caused?

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. I had a delay then cancellation flying EWR-DTW on Sunday morning that led me to arrive in Detroit 13 hours after planned arrival (on a delayed, rebooked flight). Delays were rolling, with different causes — first weather, then crew, then weather again, then arriving aircraft. No mileage offer yet.

    The biggest insult to injury is that there were signs up at the lounge saying that United 1-day passes were not being accepted that day. I begrudgingly understand why, given the large number of customers who are entitled to lounge access on business class tickets — but still left me with a VERY sour taste in my mouth about the purported “lounge access” granted twice a year by the Chase United Explorer card.

  2. Better book award flights soon. With all these extra miles coming into accounts you know the number of miles required for tickets will go up. Simple inflation and also United will be under pressure to minimize the book liability associated with the miles so everyone will likely be caught up in a devaluation even those of us who didn’t fly last week

  4. United’s paltry offer of 30,000 miles is beyond laughable When Southwest had their meltdown last year, everybody got 25,000 Rapid Rewards points plus full compensation. Southwest points are extremely valuable. 25,000 RR points will get you a round trip to Hawaii from the west coast and you’d still have about 10,000 points left over. United continuously devalues their miles. The value of 30,000 United miles is maybe a one way Regional flight in basic economy.
    Everybody go to the Department of Transportation website and look up their rights. They actually owe you quite a bit more.

  6. They could have done without the “providing these miles is the right thing to do” sanctimony.

    Otherwise good they are proactive and not casting blame when speaking to customers.

    Since the miles aren’t depositing automatically i think there will be a lot of slippage, and actual claim rates won’t be all that high.

  7. Meanwhile their partner Lufthansa says too bad too sad so sue us because we don’t give a shit about United award customers.

  8. Write a letter to Linda Ho Ho
    I’m sure they will respond generously 😉

  10. This must be arbitrary. Because. I had a cancellation on the 28th that required an overnight. Furthermore, United tells us that there was nothing to protect us on for another 4 days. No compensation and $1,000 out of pocket to get home.

  11. 3 cancelled flights multiple hotel stays and loss of revenue ages my weekend wedding was 5 days of trying to get home no compensation and finally drove to Montreal to catch a flight with another airline I am out 3k and all the airline said was sorry not right !!!

  12. Delayed flights for 9 hrs out of FLL…got into Houston at 2:30 am. No meal vouchers or hotel vouchers. My United app said flight was delayed due to technical issues My 76 yr old husband can’t sleep without his C-Pap….. never thought we should carry the thing onboard Horrible experience

  13. A 9 hour delay from Newark to Rome was horrible. Our 5:30 PM flight took off at 2:30am the next day. Multiple gate changes and departure times over the 9 hour period were blamed for ‘gate availability’ and the last was that there were fruit flies on the plane! We missed the ship for our cruise ( no, leaving a day earlier would not have helped as that flight was cancelled!!). Causing us ( and 16 others) to have to spend 2 nights in Rome, airfare to Athens a with an overnight then to catch the ship 4 days later. We are done with United. We are cutting up our FF and credit cards and mailing them to the CEO…. Not that he would care.

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