Christina and I were on our return from Viking on United from London to San Francisco, seated in the first row of business the small section between first and the galley (3 rows). After a short time we noticed that it was very cold (aprox. 55F).We were told that the heating system was not working in our area-DUH !They gave us extra blankets,heated water bottles to give us.We put on our coats and put newspapers over our feet to try to keep warm. Well 10 hours later we got to SFO.

My question is do you think United offer of "Appreciation" is fair ?

:

At United, we take pride in being a reliable part of your travel plans. We regret the inconvenience you experienced and therefore would like to offer you one of the following offers to show our appreciation for your business.

Please select one offer

$500 E-Certificate: For travel within the 50 United States, Puerto Rico, or U.S. Virgin Islands during the travel period specified. Save off published United fares on a qualifying flight purchased at united.com. Ticketing and travel by June 2, 2010. Terms and conditions

20% Economy E-Certificate: For travel to worldwide destinations from the 50 United States, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore or United Kingdom during the travel period specified. Save off published United Economy fares on a qualifying flight purchased at united.com. Ticketing and travel by June 2, 2010. Terms and conditions

22500 bonus Mileage Plus miles: Members can redeem miles toward award travel. Mileage Plus offers our members the most extensive selection of award travel destinations including over 800 cities in more than 139 countries. Terms and conditions

5 - 500 mile upgrade certificates: This Upgrade enables a customer to move up one class of service on qualifying United or United Express flight. Terms and conditions

I'll choose later. Send me an email with my list of choices.

Notice that in one way or another these offers require us to book another trip on United.

John & Christina

Also noted that the certificates require you to travel by June 10 2010, which might be difficult to plan, depending of course on your particular plans. The 5 500 mile upgrades wouldn't be enough to go from SFO across the country and back, as that usually requires 15,000 each way.
I guess for us the one that would make most sense would be the 22,500 bonus miles that we could then use in amounts as needed, especially if thats per person.

Just MHO :) As to whether or not its a fair compensation, hmmmmmm not sure. I'm sure it must have been miserable. Did they offer to move you back to the other business class section? Or was the flight full?

If we stayed at a hotel where the room's heating system malfunctioned and the management could not fix, would reasonably expect management to move us to a room that had adequate heat. Am guessing they could not move you to a seat with heat due to capacity reasons. Further, if the hotel could not find us a room with heat, would at a minimum, expect them to reimburse us the
cost of the room..they could go above/beyond by finding us a room nearby at their cost.

John bet you paid for your tickets or used ff miles, with the prudent expectation of reasonable heat or air conditioning during your flight. Using the hotel analagy above, believe your uncomfortable situation merits reimbusement for the cost of your tickets and additional frequent flyer miles added to your account (to show real appreciation for not only your business but an uncomfortable flight). Think their offer above is meager considering you endured "Iceland in the Air" for most of your flight.

Since it's United, I say you are out of luck. Their customer service is the worst and last summer I overheard them tell a woman that "United doesn't care."
I have also been on plane where the AC didn't work. And the refreshment du jour was a bottle of room temperature water. An older woman passed out. They did find a cold bottle of water for her.
Trust me - they don't care! As the steward said - just be glad your plane is leaving!
I will only fly UAL again if there is a major illness or death in the family and it's the only way home.

I do not think that the options they gave you are fair in comparison to what you went through on that trip. Now that I have said that, I agree with Betty, that there are not going to be any better offers, but I would certainly pursue getting either you miles of money refunded.
Good luck, let us know what happens.
Lynn

I would take the miles. I fly AA, but I am all about the miles!

John, so sorry to hear about your return flight. Brrrr!
We had a wonderful non-stop AA flight (booked through Regent) home. Was this flight booked through Regent?

If this is as good as UAL gets, I'd take the miles.

John that had to be trip from "H" but not as "hot" as H - others more versed about the right compensation but I do think the airlines are becoming less and less customer friendly - we sure enjoyed meeting you and Christina! Joanna

So sorry to hear that John.

None of the airlines are very customer friendly these days. Actually those are better offers than I have had in the past.

I have had similiar situations with American (no air conditioning on a commuter plane sitting on the ground for 90 minutes on a HOT day). Did they care NO, Linda was with us and she wrote in and I cannot remember what came back but NOT MUCH we did not bother to write in on that one.

Qantas - We had a situation on a long flight Auckland to LAX where we paid for a business award but this one leg had not cleared for Ken. We called every day four days before departure, no availability. They confirmed that business class was TOTALLY full on the ground right before take off.

I was in business there were 15 empty seats in business!!! This really upset us, we tried on the plane they would not move him. We paid for business and he ended up (changed his seat also) in a middle seat in the middle group.

We wrote in - our offer 10,000 miles - no other choices! We are both Lifetime Platinum members with American - Qantas is a one world partner.

American has always cleared us in a situation like this - so much for "ONE WORLD" partnerships each airlines does do its own thing.

Airlines are not what they used to be, this is not isolated to United. I like ANY foreign airline (except Qantas now).

We have had some of our worst experiences on Delta which holds most of our points - I agree they all can be hit or miss but we never forget the "misses" - flew United into Sydney and back from Singapore few yrs ago - A plus in biz - one of our best flights -

I totally agree Ngaire, the airlines just don't care anymore and that attitude shows. We fly AA or UA most of the time and just getting a reservation is stressful, much less trying to upgrade or anything like that. I too fly on the foreign partners whenever possible (i.e, I would prefer a UA flight number that is operated by LH, as opposed to an LH flight number operated by UA) although I must say our last few flights to Europe on UA have been pretty nice, and the one we had on LH was fantastic.

As an ex "stewardess" which is what we were in those days long ago, it makes me very sad.

Hi all and thanks for your reply's. As you might have guessed we already felt that the compensation offered was not quite what we expected, so I sent a email to United. I was advised to ask for something specific, I tried to be fair to United and asked for $500.00pp credit on our existing reservation to Frankfurt.They had offered a $500E-Certificate and I did not want to be forced to buy another ticket to be made happy.
I received there reply bellow:


Dear Mr. Douglas:

Thank you for contacting us. I am very sorry for your uncomfortable
experience on United Flight 931 form London-Heathrow. I am glad the
staff did all they could to assist you and Mrs. Douglas to make the
flight as comfortable as possible. I know we cannot undo what has
occurred, but we are very sorry. The customer appreciation that was
given to you is not to compensate you for any expenses but rather it is
a goodwill gesture on behalf of United for your experience during the
flight. I have looked at the history of your record and will have to
deny your request for further compensation. We hope you choose a
goodwill gesture and use it for the intended purpose. We appreciate
this opportunity to be of assistance and look forward to serving you
again.

Regards,

Matthew Michaels
United Airlines Customer Relations


I think we will take the miles. We can use them the way we want to, they do not expire and at .03cents/mile that's $675. pp.

JoAnn- The plane was full
Marcie- No, booked ourselves
Wes-Loved your Iceland Air quote.

J&C

John,
the statement that gets me is "I have looked at eh history of your record and will have to deny your request for further compensation." Does that mean that you have not travelled very much on United, so you are not as important as someone else?
I think you made the right choice under the circumstances.
Lynn

Unless you do absolutely no domestic flying - I would go with the $500 voucher since 22,500 miles won't even get you a domestic ticket. Plus you will earn miles on the ticket bought with the $500 voucher. I don't really recommend the 5 - 500-mile ugrade certs but they are good for any combination of flights (domestic only) up to 2,500 miles according to their mileage stats - its not relevant that the usual upgrade requires 15,000 miles.

Also, note that United expires all miles in an account if there is no activity (either adds or awards) in 18 months - this is common to all airlines with the exception of Continental and the "old" Northwest.

FWIW, what you received is called a SkyKit which is United's standard package for when there are problems in flight. They have been cutting back on giving them out but rarely will they go beyond the SkyKit even for United 1Ks (top published tier on United with minimum of 100,000 flown miles in one calendar year) - I have a good friend who seems to get these pretty regularly.

United better than USAirways! In December, I was on a flight to England, and not quite half way there from East Coast, we had to turn back and return to PHL for mechanical problems. We got $200 off for future credit on flight taken within a year, no offers of points or % off. I wasn't top tier, but was Gold Preferred. It added 6 hours to what was about a 7 hour flight.

Just as a side point. When they said that the heater wasn't working in your section I believe they were not being entirely truthful. What they should have said is that the air conditioners are working too well.

Fresh air enters an airplane through the engines. That air is pressurized and very hot. It then goes through the cooling packs (air conditioners) to cool the air to a comfortable cabin temp. Normally you will see more complaints about it being too warm on the plane since some airlines will try to save money by shutting down some of the cooling packs during the flight (which saves fuel).

Here's a quick synopsis of how it works:

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/cabinair/index.html

18 months and they will expire? Tom and I must have miles expiring any minute...

If you have a United-related Visa card you can buy a loaf of bread - or anything - and charge it on the card and you're good for another 18 months.

Ted, I just signed up for free Mileage Plus Dining...I get 3 pts. for every $1. until end of June. Three of the restaurants are only a mile away and places we go anyway. YEA! Just need to remember to put it on my credit card and not Tom's.

(Sorry John, didn't mean to hone in on your thread)

Aloha
Marcie no problem " I don't want to own a thread". Where have I heard that before? Ha Ha

Just an up date. On the email from United, I replied and asked if they could take us off the wait-list on one segment out of four that we have not cleared yet on our flights from HNL-FRA, stopping in SFO in Oct. Their reply-- NO. I give up, think we need to move on.

Oh- Marcie, upon our return our outdoor cat, "Gus"
had made a new friend. A little furry friend we called "Stella". She is a Persian and was very hungry ! Got together with a cat friend and had her scanned, she had a chip, so we were able to find her owners- Happy ending, except for Gus.


John& Christina

Marcie - miles (on most of the airlines) expire in 18 months only if there is absolutely no activity on the account - either flights or other credits (such as credit card / dining / other partners etc) or redemptions. Once there is activity on the account - the calendar "resets". So credit card / dining will extend the "life".

Or just make a habit of dumping a tiny bit (I believe the minimum is 1,000) of your Starwood points or American Express Membership Rewards points into each of your frequent flyer mileage programs on a preset date yearly - eg Jan 1.

OUCH I checked our Continental pts - did fly them often in old days not any longer - IF I AM reading correctly they say no expiration and our miles show up - may call them tomorrow to double check - not that many pts but enough to cry over losing

Thanks Peter...that's a good idea.

John, happy Stella got reunited with her owners! Gus will have to get over her I guess. :mecry:

Joanna - Continental does have a policy of expiring their miles but have not enforced it in the past - who knows when they may start. The "old" Northwest (pre-merger with Delta) is the same - we're all assuming that it will go to 18-months once the NW / DL programs are completely merged later this year.

I merged my NW pts with Delta and use Delta so not worrying about expiring - thanks Peter will tell Tony to take Amex plat pts and dump into Continental - I will tell him - means I will do

Joanna - just dump the absolute minimum for this purpose - since AMEX MR points are much more flexible in case you need to top off some other account for an awards.

Peter :hug: :hug: :hug: :hug: :hug: :hug:

I also would take the miles since they do not expire as long as you take a flight that credits toward the FF account in a given period of time or you get some other credit for points. The problem with these certificates is that they are usually "capacity controlled" or some such nonsence that makes them difficult to use for travel. They also typically charge some kind of service fee for this, like you have to go to the ticket counter to use and they charge for ticket counter transactions. Unfortunately, as everyone has said rarely do the airlines rise to the occasion anymore. I believe it is primarily because the business travel system has used volume to apply leverage to airlines to lower ticket rates and eliminate shopping around for service. I can't pick my carrier except for vacations, and when I complain about poor service my travel department could care less. They get their kudos by claiming they save the company money. Now if I got abused and the company said they were taking their business elsewhere I think something would change. Wishful thinking.

Certificates are notoriously hard to use and as stated about, you have to go to the airport to use them, and they charge extra for that.
We fly mostly AA--no worries about expiring miles there. But we have Delta accounts, and I just make sure I do something every so often to keep the miles from expiring.

Currency based certificates are not notoriously hard to use since they function just like "cash" (no capacity controls etc). As to the redemption process - they vary by airline, some deposit them into an "account" tied to your frequent flyer number, some will hold the reservation so that you can mail in the certificate, or you can redeem them by ticketing at the airport (United will do that with no airport ticketing fee).

For me, the $500 cert vs the 22,500 miles is no contest, I'd take the $500 cert every time. From my home airport, $500 would pay for 1.5 roundtrips to the west coast, so taking those flights would earn me approximately 12,000 miles. While the 22,500 miles wouldn't even get me 1 rountrip since that requires 25,000 miles (and heavily capacity controlled) and flying on an award ticket earns you no miles. So the net comparison for me becomes $500 + 12,000 miles compared to 22,500 miles.

The "hard to use" part is due to having to go to the airport to redeem them in person. With AA, that is your option.
Don't know anything about United as I never fly them.
But 25,000 AA miles plus $350 will get you an upgrade from coach to business from the US to Europe--that is worth way more than $500.

Peter, John and all you f.f. experts......

I signed up to receive dining f.f. miles with AA, UAL, USAir...will I get them on all 3? Does the owner of the restaurant control this?
Guess I got kind of carried away.

No, you'll only get them for one program if they are all iDine affliated. Probably the last program registered since it'll replace your earlier settings.

Petlover, you must get a better quality of certificate from the airlines than I do. All certificates I get except cash vouchers are certificates are capacity controlled and frequently can't be used for some fares. The good news is my wife just used a companion certificate I got from AMEX at Delta by telephone. She went to the airport on my instruction but got a run around, got annoyed and then went home a called Delta and got what she wanted.

Marcie - you won't earn miles on all 3 frequent flyer programs. I register each of our credit cards to different programs so that I can target which program "needs" the miles when dining at a participating restaurant.

Delta AMEX companion certificate up until last year needed to be ticketed in person at the airport or the now mostly defunct city ticket office. Now you can redeem them totally by phone.

Aloha
Well just a follow-up. We took Peteropny's (mahalo)advice and took the $500 cert. We used it to book a R/T HNL-SFO. The current fare is about $730., so net to us was $230.ea. Hawaiian air was much less and we do like them but it all worked out.
We needed to get to SFO to start our trip to FLL for a cruise on the Mariner to Monte Carlo.
So thanks to all for your input.
John & Christina

Glad it worked out for you :)