The Pitfalls of United’s Rewards
In a previous compare and contrast of United/Chase, I mentioned some of the rewards offered to customers who sign up for their cards. These include a $25 United Discount Travel Certificate, a one-way, 1,000 mile, One-class Upgrade Certificate, and in the case of their Platinum card, a companion travel certificate.
What Are These Worth?
I can tell you from personal experience that the $25 Discount Certificate is an invitation to a bureaucratic nightmare. Unbelievably, these certificates cannot be redeemed online, forcing you call United and incur their “telephone reservation fee”. You are then instructed to mail your certificate to their processing center, where you risk it getting lost and/or incurring their “ticket by mail fee”. Also, Platinum card holders loose the chance to earn elite qualifying miles through purchasing from United online. The worst part is, that they do not even inform you at the time of reservation that they will apply this fee to your credit card. It was only after I saw a separate line item on my credit card statement for “ticket by mail” that I contact United to express my outrage. They apologized and offered me yet another travel certificate! I declined to accept their offer for fear of entering into causality loop that could rip apart the space time continuum. Only by threatening a chargeback to my credit card, was I able to receive my money back. In keeping with United’s philosophy of endless unnecessary paperwork, I received a check in the mail rather than a credit back to my card. Ultimately, I wished I had never received the $25 certificate.
But I Can Get Upgraded, Right?
As for their one-way, 1,000 mile, One-class Upgrade Certificate, I found this to be nearly as useless. The small print excludes reward flights and a host of discounted fares. Upgrades can only be requested 24 hours in advance, and confirmed 20 minutes prior to boarding. In short, you are at the bottom of their upgrade list, and you will probably be risking your available overhead luggage space just by attempting to use it. Who knows if you will be forced to pay the checked baggage fee when that happens. Finally, all of my eligible flights in the previous year had been greater than 1,000 miles, so I never even got a chance to use it. Bicoastals beware!
Companion Certificate
The pattern is clear, United’s certificates are an invitation for frustration and disappointment, so why should their companion certificate be any different? As one blogger notes, the certificate can only be redeemed over the telephone, and guess what, the price is often different on the phone than it is online. You also have the pleasure of dealing with their poorly trained outsourced reservations agents who are frequently misinformed. Finally, since the certificate cannot be redeemed online, Platinum card again holders loose their chance to earn elite qualifying miles through purchasing from United online, one of the few benefits the Platinum card offers over their other cards.
How To Create Unhappy Customers
These practices give a bad name to the concept of credit card rewards, as well as the airline industry in general. It is companies like United, and by implication Chase, that have created an alternative niche in the market for air travel and credit cards. Fortunately, this void is being filled by Southwest Airlines with their Fees Don’t Fly campaign as well as Capitol One’s No Hassles reward cards. It has been customer experiences like these that recently prompted Business Week magazine to declare about United that “Liquidating the carrier is the only way to fix its uniquely embedded problems.” If you don’t agree, you probably have not tried to redeem their $25 “Discount Certificate.”
