Do US Airlines Really "Care"?

David J. Danto

Travel thoughts in my own, personal opinion

eMail: ddanto@IMCCA.org Follow Industry News: @NJDavidD on all

Do Airlines Really “Care” – October 2024

This blog is the equivalent of shouting off of a cliff into a void. No one at the company will hear it, but it will likely make me feel a little better.

As my longtime readers know, I’m a United Million Miler, and as most Million Milers know, that means practically nothing to United. What you spent a lifetime earning has far, far less value to them than what you spent on airfare last week. It’s the ultimate decades-long bait and switch.

I recently had an issue with not receiving credit for partner flights. The specifics don’t matter here, so I’ll leave them out. What matters is the maddening customer service runaround I experienced.

I submitted a “Customer Care” case online – United’s preferred method for such complaints. I explained the situation, and this is the response I received:

“Thank you for reaching out to us! Visit our Help Center and click on MileagePlus to receive quick answers related to your concern. If you need additional assistance, please call our MileagePlus team at 1-800-421-4655 (07:00 A.M. to Midnight CT daily) or send a message via chat. Please note: This email box is not monitored. We look forward to seeing you on board soon! Sincerely, United Customer Care. Case ID: 172746109273112.”

So, following their instructions, I reached out to the MileagePlus team online. Their team doesn’t accept email – just chat or calls. I initiated an online chat, and their agent offered me 3K miles “as a courtesy,” far less than the 11K I felt I was owed. MileagePlus told me to contact Customer Care again, as they “would definitely understand the discrepancy and be able to award more missing miles.”

So, I contacted Customer Care again with this message:

“This is the third time I’m contacting United. The first time was case 172746109273112. The result of that case was that you told me to contact MileagePlus. I just chatted with MileagePlus, and they told me to contact Customer Care. [The details of my situation are xxxxxxx.] Please credit me with the mileage I should have received … I should be credited with 11K miles. MP said they could only do 3K miles, which is a joke. They said Customer Care could fix it, so I’m writing to you again. Please let me know your resolution to this situation.”

Any United customer reading this – heck, any US airline customer – probably knows what happened next. Here’s United’s response:

This wasn’t something I was heavily dependent upon. Airline frequent flyer miles have been devalued to the point where they’re pretty much useless. While 11K missing miles was worth an email or two, it wasn’t worth getting worked up about.

The point of sharing this with you isn’t about the missing miles. It’s to show that “Customer Care” is an oxymoron. They didn’t even care enough to read the message and understand that their rote response wasn’t adequate to resolve the situation. United doesn’t care about you or me as customers. They care about using automated processes – whether it’s AI or simple keyword scanning – to dispose of any requests. Either they hire very stupid people, or, more likely, they just don’t care enough to read a very short (character-limited) online message from their customers.

I believe there’s a special place in the afterlife reserved for all airline executives, and cases like this will likely serve as judgment for the frustrations they’ll face for eternity. (How’s that for a nice way to tell United to go to hell?)

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This article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own, personal opinions.

All image and links provided above as reference under prevailing fair use statutes.

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As always, feel free to write and comment, question or disagree. Hearing from the traveling community is always a highlight for me. Thanks!