There’s a thread on FlyerTalk discussing a comment United Airlines CFO John Rainey made during the 2012 Bank of America-Merrill Lynch Global Transportation Conference that caught my eye earlier today. I was highly intrigued, so had to take a listen to the presentation myself and here’s exactly what he said:

That statement was made while he was noting the benefits of SHARES from this slide:

Image courtesy United Airlines

First, he noted how SHARES, unlike Apollo, has the ability to revenue manage ancillary products, like Economy Plus. United can now charge different prices for an E+ upgrade depending on the day of week, time of day, type of seat (aisle, middle, window), etc. Then he mentioned how SHARES allows United to better manage the MileagePlus program.

This is when he dropped the comment, which has many on FlyerTalk pissed off beyond belief. While I’m not outraged by it, it does sting quite a bit and I’m surprised he’d say such a thing at a time when sooo many elites are already questioning a switch in loyalty, if they haven’t already jumped ship. I know that what he said is management’s attitude, but to say “over entitled” out loud… just ridiculous. Even if I’m not in the “certain” group he’s referring to (I know I am), it still stung.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised… the guy who introduced him said he prefers to be viewed as, “a finance guy more than an airline guy.”

So much for loyalty. A revenue-based elite program (vs. mileage-based) is looking more likely sooner rather than later.

I’ve added the United Airlines MileagePlus Club credit card from Chase to my page dedicated to mile and point earning credit cards. While this card doesn’t offer bonus miles for signing up like the MileagePlus Explorer card does, there are many other benefits that are equally appealing depending on your travel habits. Among them:

• Annual United Club membership (up to a $475 value): As a MileagePlus Club Card member, you and your eligible travel companion have unlimited access to more than 50 United Club locations, as well as access to participating Star Alliance^® affiliated lounges around the globe.
• Premier Access travel services: Save time at the airport with priority check-in, security (where available), boarding and baggage handling benefits.
• Check your first and second bag for free: You and a companion can each check your first and second standard bag for free on United flights when you pay for your tickets with the Card (a savings of up to $240 round trip).
  
• Earn 1.5 award miles per $1 spent; 2 award miles per $1 spent on United purchases.
• Your miles don’t expire as long as you’re a cardmemeber: You keep them until you use them.
• You won’t pay close-in booking fees on award tickets: As a MileagePlus Club Card member, you can book United award tickets for close-in dates without having to pay an additional booking fee.
• Use miles for any seat, any time, on any United flight:  There are no restrictions or blackout dates. If seats are available for sale, they can be redeemed at the MileagePlus Standard Award level – a benefit reserved for Card members and MileagePlus Premier members.
• No foreign transaction fees.
• Receive special treatment with Hyatt Hotels & Resorts and Avis: Accept the invitation to join an exclusive Avis^® program and also enjoy automatic enrollment in the Platinum Level of Hyatt’s Gold Passport^®.
• Enjoy Luxury Collection Hotel & Resort privileges:  Stay in style with room upgrades, complimentary breakfast and other special Cardmember-only amenities at more than 700 of the finest hotels, resorts and spas in the United States and around the world.

The annual fee is $395, but they are currently offering a $95 statement credit after your first purchase. The current APR for this card is 15.24% variable.

As other bloggers have pointed out, this card has some core advantages over the United Explorer card (excluding the obvious United Club membership), including the elimination of foreign transaction fees, an extra 0.5 miles per dollar spent on regular purchases and allowing two checked bags for free instead of one.

For full pricing and other terms and conditions, click here.

I receive a small commission if you get approved for a card by using the links in this post. I remain grateful for any who do and I only dedicate posts to cards I feel have value. Additional travel credit cards can be found here.

Success! I finally received resolution on my previously blogged about issue redeeming a $200 United Airlines customer appreciation e-certificate. Here are the links to round one and round two and a short recap:

• The e-certificate wasn’t recognized when I tried making a booking online.
• On my first call to reservations, the agent had me build a PNR online, she supposedly documented it, extended the ticketing time limit and asked me to use the united.com/feedback web page to ask customer relations to research the cert.
• After not hearing anything for several days, I called back. The PNR vanished.
• The new agent (web support) built a new reservation and after an hour trying to get the cert to work with her supervisor, came back and said they’d ticket the full fare, then refund my credit card $200.
• The fare was charged, but no refund ever showed up.
• The next 45-minute call revealed there was no documentation in my reservation about the cert or promised refund.
• I forwarded the original e-cert email I received from United to this agent’s supervisor who spent time researching, but eventually came back to say, “give us a few days to research further with customer relations.”
• The agent mentioned she’d monitor my PNR and would follow up with me the following Monday or Tuesday.

Tuesday passed without hearing anything, so instead of starting from scratch with a new agent by calling – and likely getting another run around – I shot off an email to the supervisor who I previously forwarded the e-cert to in round two. I basically said that I still hadn’t heard back with appropriate resolution and that I expect to get a reply given the multiple failed attempts. I was not going to give up.

A full week went by before I received a response back, which was, “I have talked to two different people in Customer Care and they promise me they will give me an answer in the next couple of days. I appreciate your patience.” (Sigh)

Well… they finally came through. On Thursday, I received an email from Customer Care with not only a new $200 e-cert valid for the next year, but also a note saying they are crediting 20,000 bonus miles to my MileagePlus account. Nope, that’s not a typo… 20,000. And they posted to my account on Friday.

While I lost a few hours of my time and got a ridiculous run around, I’m happy with the resolution and glad I didn’t give up.

As widely blogged and reported, United Airlines has a new promotion out there today offering up to 25,000 bonus MileagePlus miles after completion of a defined number of roundtrip flights from now through 7/15/12. Based on what I’ve read from others, it definitely appears targeted and the required number of trips varies.

I saw a slew of tweets and blog posts from those who had already received an email from United about it before mine arrived in my inbox at 3:15pm PST. I must be on the delayed distribution list, though I guess I shouldn’t care given how a twitter friend got “shafted” (more on that in a bit).

Here was my offer received via email:

I clicked through and successfully registered getting the confirmation as follows:

(Side note: Does everyone take a screen capture or save a PDF of each successful promotion registration? I do. It might pay off if something goes awry with mileage crediting after the promo ends.)

The fine print reads, “To qualify, register for the offer before travel, then purchase and complete paid qualifying roundtrips to any destination worldwide on United– or United Express®–operated flights.” The bolding emphasis was mine. I don’t like the way they worded it, as it might be open to interpretation. Meaning… do you have to register before you purchase or just before travel? I would have written that sentence a bit differently.

Further fine print reveals the ticketing period is 4/15/12 – 7/15/12 and the travel period matches, excluding trips taken between 7/3/12 – 7/5/12.

Now… one twitter follower mentioned his offer was for 5,000 miles after 7 roundtrips, 10,000 miles after 8 and 25,000 miles after 9 roundtrips. He’s a Premier Gold and flew about half the amount of miles I did last year. To me, it would make more sense for United to offer lower-tier members the offer I received and force me to fly even more to qualify.

If you have not received an email and want to give registration a go, click here.

Did you receive a different offer?

Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but in case you haven’t heard about the newest United Airlines promotion, here it is.

Until midnight tonight Central time, there’s a 40% savings in purchased MileagePlus miles on United’s website.

If you’re close to an award, I say absolutely go for it. Anywhere from 2,000 miles for $45.15 up to 100,000 for $2,257.50 can be purchased. As a bench marker, a round-trip “saver” business class (or BusinessFirst on two-cabin aircraft) award to Europe from the United States mainland, Alaska or Canada is 100,000 miles. That’s generally a better value than some of the current business class sale fares out there.

I’ve purchased miles at a higher rate-per-mile when I’ve “needed” them, actually… so again, if you’re close to an award, today is the day to buy miles on United.

Full terms, conditions and the link to buy miles is here.

Both American and United came out with new bonus mile offers today. Well… the United one wasn’t officially announced, but the registration page is up. More on that in a moment.

American Airlines is offering double AAdvantage miles (redeemable, not elite) on a batch of select Alaska Airlines flights. Registration is required and the travel window is from today, April 16, to June 30, 2012. The promotion code is ASD12 and double miles can be accrued in the following nonstop markets:

Burbank (BUR) – Portland (PDX)

Honolulu (HNL) – Oakland (OAK)

Honolulu (HNL) – San Jose (SJC)

Kansas City (MCI) – Seattle (SEA)

Los Angeles (LAX) – Mammoth Lakes (XXX)

Oakland (OAK) – Portland (PDX)

Ontario (ONT) – Portland (PDX)

Portland (PDX) – San Francisco (SFO)

With a hat tip to Wandering Aramean, United Airlines appears to be offering bonus MileagePlus miles (both redeemable and Premier Qualifying Miles) for trips between Boston and Tokyo Narita. It’s based on the fare purchased and offers either a 25% or 50% bonus as follows:

Ticketing and travel for this promotion is from April 1 to August 31, 2012. As Seth noted, the terms are a bit tricky. As United doesn’t have a nonstop in the market, the language of the offer reads, “Itineraries with connecting flights into or out of Boston and Narita are eligible for this promotion; however the bonus award miles only apply for segments between Boston and Narita.”

The boldface is my emphasis and appears to mean that so long as you’re on some type of ticket between Boston and Narita – no matter the connection point – you’ll receive the bonus. Your mileage may vary, as always. The promo code on the United registration page is TB3M67.

Related post: New American and United bonus mile opportunities

There have been quite a few new bonus mile opportunities released by both American and United that I’m just now catching up on. Here’s a summary of some of them:

American Airlines

• BOS-NRT: In celebration of the new nonstop service on Japan Airlines between Boston and Tokyo Narita, earn double redeemable miles every time you fly the route on a new Boeing 787. This offer is valid for travel on purchased, published Business Class and select Economy Class fares from April 22, 2012 through June 30, 2012. The Business Class fares must be booked in J, R, D or I; Economy Class fares booked in Y, W, B, H, K, M, L, V or S on American Airlines marketed flights; Business Class fares booked in J, C, D, X or I; Economy Class fares booked in Y, W, B, E, H, K, M, L, V or S on Japan Airlines operated flights. Offer code is BOSTY. Register here.
• DFW-BOS: Book a roundtrip ticket and fly on American Airlines between Dallas/Fort Worth and Boston between April 3, 2012 and June 30, 2012 and you’ll earn double elite status qualifying miles. Reservations containing open jaws are eligible. Reservation must be booked on or after April 3, 2012, to be eligible. Offer code is BOSEQ. Register here.
• LifeLock Identity Theft Protection: This offer seems to come and go from time to time and the current iteration offers up to 5,500 AAdvantage miles, plus a 10% discount. For the LifeLock basic package you earn 2,500 miles for the first year (must be active with LifeLock for 31 days to get the miles) and an additional 1,250 at the beginning of year two and three of service. For the LifeLock Ultimate package, earn 3,000 miles, plus the same 1,250 at the beginning of year two and three. Register here.

United Airlines

• IAD-DUB: Earn double redeemable miles from June 7, 2012 through September 30, 2012, when you register before travel, then fly between Washington, D.C. (IAD) and Dublin, Ireland. Ticketing dates: March 26, 2012 through September 30, 2012. Registration and full terms are here.
• EWR-EZE: Earn double redeemable miles from April 9, 2012 through July 31, 2012, when you register before travel, then fly between New York/Newark and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Ticketing dates: March 20, 2012 through July 31, 2012. Registration and full terms are here.
• IAD-MAN: Earn double redeemable miles from May 1, 2012 through September 30, 2012, when you register before travel, then fly between Washington, D.C. (IAD) and Manchester, England on United. Ticketing dates: March 26, 2012 through September 30, 2012. Registration and full terms here.
• Copa Airlines or Copa Airlines Colombia: Earn a one-time bonus of 2,000 MileagePlus redeemable miles on any flight operated by Copa or Copa Columbia. Offer valid for travel between March 19 and May 19, 2012. Eligible classes of service are C, D, Y, B, M, H, Q, K, V, U, S, W, E, L, T and N. Registration and full terms here.

I’m certain I’m not the only one noticing issues with how United Airlines flights have been posting to MileagePlus lately. Initially, I was going to remain silent as the errors have been – until now – to my benefit, such as upgraded flights reflecting 150% EQM as if they were paid premium cabins. Now, however, things are getting really whacky.

This past week I flew on a full-fare coach ‘B’ ticket and the flight ended up posting with negative PQMs and I didn’t receive the 125% bonus redeemable miles.

I spent a bit of time over on the Flyertalk boards today reading about similar issues and it sounds like MileagePlus will be doing a sweep soon to correct the errors. According to this post, a representative admits to the problems and points to the upcoming sweep:

As I’ve been doing for years, I maintain a spreadsheet with all of my flight activity to occasionally cross-check against what the website reflects. While not as tech-savvy as the many applications out there that do it for you automatically, I think it might be beneficial for everyone to carefully monitor their United balances in the coming days and weeks in a similar fashion to help identify any posting errors.

How have you fared?

One of my good friends sent me a link to a gut-busting version of the “Hitler’s Rage” video showing how “Hitler” reacts to the 2012 United Airlines MileagePlus program changes. If you understand German it might not be that funny, but the captions are brilliantly written and perfectly timed for a highly entertaining four minutes. My apologies in advance for the damn ad you have to watch first… it’s worth the wait, though.

P.S. I’ve been working on (and traveling for) a new and exciting project this week, so my apologies for the lighter and briefer posts. Will introduce you to my new endeavor very soon.

Earlier this week, United Airlines and many other carriers presented at the J.P. Morgan Aviation, Transportation & Defense Conference in New York, and once again, Jeff Smisek was very engaging as he’s willing to go off-script a bit adding more than what the bland presentation slides provide. I listened to the 40-minute audio of his presentation and Q&A session last night and found the following particularly interesting, some of which I was hearing for the first time (bolded items).

He started his talk off by showing the “Rah! Rah! United” commercial currently seen immediately preceding the safety videos airing onboard this month (and last) jokingly claiming, “We need to sell some tickets.” While proceeding through the slides, he mentioned:

• Consolidation has been very, very good for the airline business in part because the industry was selling seats for far less than customers were willing to pay from the 1980s until the mid-2000s.
• United’s current management team is focused on sufficient and sustainable return on invested capital (ROIC) and a “significant” portion of their compensation is tied to achieving this goal.
• The unbundling of products and services has created high margin items, something rarely seen in the airline industry.
• United is “marching toward a higher business mix.”
• The Guam hub/service is a profitable operation.
• United will take delivery of 19 fuel efficient 737-900ERs this year and the first five of 50 787s (I thought it was to be six in 2012). He also mentioned they “plan to revenue manage that airplane (787) differently than the rest of the fleet.” I translate that as “good luck getting BusinessFirst award seats.”
• 777 pilots are common type-rated with the 787.
• Depending on demand and seasonality, certain markets will see 787s swapped in on 777/747 routes. Makes sense.
• Original capacity guidance for 2012 has been adjusted downward with the airline now anticipating a decrease of between -0.5% to -1.5% YOY.
• United will be investing in customer resource management (CRM) software to better deliver the right offers to the right customers.
• He plugged Chase as being a very important partner of MileagePlus. Not surprising.
• He also recognized that issues remain from the conversion on March 3rd to a new passenger service system and gave a similar “we’re working on the issues” as the press releases since have mentioned.

During the Q&A portion:

• When asked, “Who will be running MileagePlus?” he responded with the simple fact that United is now since the OnePass program has been integrated. I think the questioner was aiming more at management style (CO vs. UA), so it effectively went unanswered.
• He’s comfortable with March bookings and isn’t particularly concerned over later months’ advance booking levels.
• When asked, “Do you make more money if American and US Airways merge?” he laughed and simply stated his viewpoint again that consolidation has been good and can continue to be a good thing.
• His top priorities for what Washington should be focused on are 1) modernization of the air traffic system and 2) a national airline policy with rational levels of taxation.
• He declined to comment on specific compensation United will receive from Boeing for the late deliveries of the 787.
• Revenue management moved to origin & destination-based vs. by segment and it underperformed in February noting it needs a degree of learning and history.
• He takes comfort in Delta’s RASM growth noting it shows how well a carrier can realize synergies post-merger.

The slide presentation can be found on United’s Investor Relations page with the audio currently available from J.P. Morgan. Presentations from the other airlines present are also available if you’re interested.

A couple of weeks ago, I flew legacy Continental Airlines from Los Angeles to Houston and overheard the gate agent at LAX announce, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll shortly begin boarding for flight XXXX to Houston with continuing service to Denver…” I was a bit taken back by the fairly significant backtrack routing for the flight’s continuation to Denver and I doubted anyone – besides a mileage runner – would be taking this “direct” flight to Denver.

Last week, a reader contacted me about his same-day mileage run flying DEN-SEA-IAD-DEN and he was concerned over the mileage accrual showing up on his online reservation for the SEA-IAD-DEN portion. It, oddly enough, is another rather circuitous “direct” flight using the same flight number.

Early last year – or maybe it was in 2010 – United switched its policy about mileage accrual when taking a direct flight to provide credit for each segment’s mileage flown. It was a happy day for many, but it appears now we’re back to the old (or rather, Continental’s) policy.

My reader called United and received confirmation that he would only get the 1,020 miles for flying SEA-IAD-DEN, so ended up cancelling the reservation as losing the originally expected 2,724 more Premier Qualifying Miles made the trip pointless.

I find it just crazy that United is recycling flight numbers like this, so let my reader’s loss come as a word of caution to those who aren’t familiar with how direct flights will now be credited.