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What United Is Doing
United tells their customers no seats are available for award travel on their
partner airlines, even when those partner airlines have made seats available.
Customers of any other Star Alliance airline are able to book those seats, while
United's customers are not. This is contradictory to the marketing claims of
United stressing the benefits derived from their global alliance. From the
Star Alliance Benefits FAQ
:
Q. Can I redeem miles or points for awards on Star Alliance member airlines?
A. Yes. You are able to use your miles or points accumulated in one programme
for travel awards on any of the Star Alliance airlines. For information and/or
booking information, you will need to refer to your frequent flyer programme
directly. |
The text from
United's web site
reads like this:
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United Saver / Star Alliance Awards allow you to redeem your Mileage Plus miles
for award travel to more than 900 destinations worldwide. No matter which
carrier or combination of carriers you choose, the Mileage Plus award levels are
the same. They vary only by class of service and region. |
The way this system works is that all Star Alliance member airlines make some
portion of their seats available via Starnet - a sort of Star Alliance inventory
clearinghouse. Member airlines may not make seats available on every flight and
every day. Some individual flights may have no seats available. Inventory may be
constricted due to high demand or any reason the carrier chooses.
What United is doing, however, is unique among airlines and alliances
that we know of. United is not allowing their Mileage Plus program members access to
seats even after member airlines have made them available. Some of these
restrictions may be for competitive reasons - such as on routes where United
offers flights and wishes to discourage the choice of another Star Alliance
carrier that also serves that route. On some routes, though, United does not
even offer flights on their own aircraft that might be an alternative. There have been reports of Mileage Plus members being
unable to redeem their miles for the seats they were looking for over the entire
length of the published schedule, even though the operating carrier had made
seats available as verified through other Star Alliance member booking sites.
Effectively, some of the 900+ claimed Star Alliance destinations are frequently
completely inaccesable via award travel.
A helpful, if spirited, discussion on Starnet blocking can
be found at Flyertalk.com
United has admitted to the practice.
In the linked article, United spokesman Jeff Kovick is quoted as saying, "We manage award
availability on our Star Alliance partners just as we do with United's own saver
awards."
It is the belief of many loyal United Mileage Plus members, including myself,
that this artifical restriction is a unique and deceptive practice that betrays
the marketing promises made by Star Alliance program airlines. It is not
apparent that United or Star Alliance are doing anything specifically illegal by
implementing capacity controls. It is instead apparent that United is promising a level of integration and free use of
miles on partner carriers that is not being lived up to, and which is in bad
faith to its customers - who generally don't find out their miles are unusable
to a particular star alliance destination for many months at a time until they
attempt to redeem them, and once they find out this benefit is unavailable they
are not told United is responsible for taking this Star Alliance benefit away.
Sometimes customers are even lied to and told that the operating carrier did not
make seats available when clearly that was not the case.
When United operates a program such as this that strays far from the normal
capacity controls used among carriers and airline alliances, United risks great damage to its reputation with
everyone from the casual customer to the year-after-year 100,000 mile flyer. To
operate in good faith with its customers, United should rescind this policy
immeaditely.
The most effective method of persuasion in this case, of course, is the power of
the purse. Delta and American do not further capacity control SkyTeam and
OneWorld inventory (respectively). Within the Star Alliance, US Airways does not
employ this agressive Starnet blocking and Continental has announced that it
does not intend to once it joins the Star Alliance.
Specific Actions To Be Taken:
- Choose SkyTeam or OneWorld airlines for your business
- If you continue to use Star Alliance, credit your miles to other programs which
do not employ Starnet blocking (as far as we know - any of the others)
- Let United and Mileage Plus know that you are not happy with this practice. I
suggest the address for customer relations as a starting point:
Customer Relations
WHQPW
United Airlines
PO Box 66100
Chicago, IL 60666
You may also care for:
Telephone: (877) 228-1327
Fax: (877) 406-1059
Graham Atkinson is the President of Mileage Plus. Be sure to let him know what
this Mileage Plus policy makes you think of United. |
- Let the Star Alliance know what you think of their member airline's policy
Star Alliance Services GmbH
Frankfurt Airport Centre, Main Lobby
60546 Frankfurt/Main
Mr. Jaan Albrecht (CEO)
Tel.: 069 9637500
Fax: 069 96375610 |
- Get out the word. Your word of mouth affects the buying decisions of those you
know.
- Get out the word. Your persistence on this issue brings it to the attention of
journalists who care about the public impact of these policies.
- Get out the word. Your vocal displeasure with deceptive marketing claims
directed toward
government regulatory bodies will cause investigation and further scrutiny the next time
Star Alliance asks for increased antitrust immunity.
- Add yourself to this
Facebook group
to show your support
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