This page is for
historical purposes only. Some of the links do not work any more. Some of the
links will be from the
wayback
machine.
UA put the
goalposts
back and agrees to honor the original terms. You must have registered
with
UA
for the MPD714 Early Bird Exception by Mar 15, 2004 to receive
the full bonus amount.
FlyerTalk web discussion thread is
at
Original
Promo
Latest
Status
Contact
Info
This
page will be updated frequently on the status of United Airlines
honoring the
original terms of the Early Bird Bonus
promotion
(MPW004 and MPD873). I fly UA about 80% of
the time and have a large balance in my Mileage Plus account so I have
an interest in their survival. If UA does not honor the original terms
of the offer, it will generate much ill will and bring them closer
to chapter 7. There are so many great promos going on at the moment and
I encourage you to fly and take advantage of these promos. However,
since
UA changed the terms and conditions on the Early
Bird promo, they might on others also. When I called
Mileage plus to first complain about this, I was reminded "Offer subject to
change without
notice." My response was "My choice of airline is also subject to change
without notice."
When I
mentioned the Early Bird offer to a friend of mine right after it was
announced, his response was "It sounds like they are heating the house
by burning down the walls." UA must be in desperate need of cash to
give offers like this when it will result in a large future demand on
award seats. One of my previous managers reminded me many times when I
wanted to look long term rather than short "You won't be around
tomorrow if the tiger eats you tonight".
I
purchased 6
tickets Dec 13, 2003, two days after the promo was announced, only 1 of
which
I would
have bought otherwise. Some of the these tickets were more expensive (H, Q
and V fare basis) than
the
lowest fare available so as to qualify for the promo. Do you
think UA will refund these because
they changed the terms of the promo? No way.
Since the ruling on February 20 that UA will honor the original terms I
have purchased two more international trips that will qualify for the
Early Bird "triple bonus miles". I will be qualifying for my 2005 1K
before the end of this promo.
Original Promo
The
main difference in the original and current T&C is:
Original
Bonus is in addition to
paid
flight miles and any applicable elite and class-of-service bonuses.
Current
Triple/Double/5,000 miles
are in addition to any applicable elite and class-of-service
bonuses.
Leaving
out the
words "Bonus" and "paid flight" miles results in one
less times of flight miles. For a Premier Executive or higher member
traveling
on an economy ticket it results in receiving only 4 times the flight
miles rather than 5 times as the original offer would have. This change
was made on or about Dec. 16,
2003. I don't have documentation of exact time. It is likely to be
Tue Dec 16 16:13:47 2003, but could be a little earlier or later. The
original terms were later advertised in the Chicago Tribune on Jan 21, 2004
and USA Today on Jan 22, 2004.
The
following 4 links are to copies of the original Early Bird promo
pages, created by UA on Dec. 11, 2003. They will open in a new window. These were reconstructed from an email I sent to
myself on Dec 12, 2003. I certify that these are exact copies of UA's
offer page as of Dec 12, 2003. Absolutely no changes whatsoever
were necessary to port these to my web server. The html source code
of the promo page is dated
and the T&C
HTML
versions
Promo
page http://www.genefowler.com/MPW004/EBpromo20031211.html
T&C page http://www.genefowler.com/MPW004/TnC20031211.html
PDF
versions - IF UA wants you to send in a copy, this is probably best.
Promo page http://www.genefowler.com/MPW004/EBpromo20031211.pdf
T&C page
http://www.genefowler.com/MPW004/TnC20031211.pdf
Adobe®
Reader® is necessary for opening the PDF files.
The
smoking gun has been found. The
original terms were advertised in the
Chicago Tribune on Jan 21, 2004 and USA
Today on Jan 22, 2004. Thanks to jan_az and
indo79 for sending these to me.
Click on the the ad for a 300K high resolution image of the Chicago
Tribune Jan 21, 2004 ad.
My
scanner could not scan at once a full newspaper page so I had
pasted
together 3
scans with
PhotoShop.
Depending on your browser type (Netscape, Mozilla, IE, etc) and it's
setting you will have to scroll or enlarge the image to see the fine
print. Some printers also have problems print this large of an image.
To get it to fit on one page you need to scale it to about 38% of
original size. But then you can't read the Terms and Conditions. I will
be putting a scan of just the T&C on here soon.
The
original terms and conditions are still
being offered on UA web
sites in German Japanese
Portuguese and Spanish. I saved
snapshots of all of them in case they get changed but these links are
to the current UA pages.
I
also
have a copy of the
For 1Ks only web page for
December 11–18, 2003. That announcement is not much different from the
current text. Since this is supposed to be restricted to 1K
members only, I don't want to advertise the link publicly. If you are
a 1K and wish a copy send email to earlybird@genefowler.com. For those who I don't know please attach some sort of
documentation that you are a 1K. A small snippet of text from the
current 1K
website should do.
The
current Early Bird Promo on ual.com
The early bird should get the
worm, but the squeaky wheel will get the grease.
Related links in Flyertalk UA forum
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum50/HTML/026211.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum50/HTML/024238.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum50/HTML/024658.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum50/HTML/025981.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum50/HTML/026024.html
AA is having a
similar situation with the FLY04 promo
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum71/HTML/021098.html
Here is the link to an AAdvantage member's
site concerning this fiasco.
Latest Status (reverse chronological
order)
Mar 18 2004
The Early Bird exception page http://www.united.com/offer/mpd714
no longer exists. If you can come up with a good reason for extending the
exception, you can call UA Mileage Plus and ask to be registered for MPD714. I
think a good reason is the fact the the original terms are still being
advertised on the German Japanese
Portuguese and Spanish sites. I
have reported this to UA 3 times and the pages are still there.
Mar 1 2:16 PM US MST
Here is the final answer from UA on how the be
granted the "Early Bird Exception"
"We have a URL available now for members to post
their Mileage Plus number to register for the Early Bird exception.
That is what we have been working on to make it easier. The address is http://www.united.com/offer/mpd714.
It will only be available a limited time. [Mar. 15] "
Here is the content of the registration page.
* To apply for the Early Bird Exception, you
needed
to have registered for the Early
Bird Promotion.
* Registrations will be accepted through March 15,
2004.
* If appropriate, mileage adjustments will be made
to your account on or about April 15, 2004.
I suggest you register for the exception even if you have been told on
the phone or in email that you have been granted the exception.
Registering more that once does not hurt. Since you don't get a good
confirmation that you are registered, I suggest you save and/or print a
copy of the registration page and the "Thank you for registering" page.
If really paranoid like I am, wait a few days and call Mileage Plus and
ask if you are registered for MPD004 and MPD714.
From the many call inquiries I have made to UA it appears that most of
the Customer Service Representatives still have not been informed about
the Early Bird Exception. If you encounter someone that is giving you
information that is contradictory of what I have posted on here, ask to
speak to a Service Director. They are generally better informed. Ask
that the CSR be informed to give the correct info. It is sad that we
have to perform training for UA.
Feb 24, 2004 7:35 AM US MST
I received email from UA stating "This exception was not limited to 1K
members. We will make sure the United Customer Relations
representatives receive this information."
Feb 23, 2004
Sent email to my contact at UA (did not get reply
or return receipt). Called 5 times, left voice mail once. I guess not
in the office today.
In the email was the scan of the Jan 22 USA Today article, and links to
the 4 non-English UA web sites that still contain the original terms.
With this evidence, I don't see how the original bonus terms can be
denied to anyone who qualified.
And to all of those who have sent me email, there are so many that I
can't reply to each of you individually. In special cases I have
and will continue to do so.
There have been about 1200 unique IP accesses to the web page. The
traffic was getting so high that I had to move the high resolution scan
to JBLUA320's web site.
Feb 22, 2004
The original terms were found to exist on four UA websites.
Feb 20, 2004
4:30 PM US MST
Just when I
thought this issue was solved I began getting email from people and a
call from UA that the original terms were going to only be offered to
1K members as the 1K web page was the only place that the original
terms
were advertised. I mentioned the USA
Today ad of Jan 22, 2004 but since I did not have a copy in
hand at this time, I did not press the issue. Besides the person who
was my primary contact had gone home for the day. A little later jan_az
furnished me with a scan of the USA Today ad.
I will follow up with UA on Monday Feb 23 using this ad as evidence
that
the
offer was extended to everyone.
Feb 20, 2004 9:30 AM US MST
I got a call
from
Mileage Plus stating the
following:
1. Apology
for
any misunderstanding on the promo terms
2. At the
end of
the promo, additional miles will be posted to my account such that the
total is 5X of flight miles.
3.
Any other people that contact Customer Relations will be given the
additional miles. [assuming they completed the terms of the offer.]
Contact them after Feb 27 or at the end of promo. Miles will be
credited at the end of the promo [April].
Thu
Feb 19
2:56 PM US MST
I got an email return receipt Mr. White had open my email.
Wed
Feb 18
10:42 PM US MST
I sent an
email to Martin White (Sr VP of Marketing) explaining the confusion
with the changing of the terms.
Mon Feb 16 2004 9:30 PM US MST
At the moment Mileage Plus has washed their hands of
this. I spoke
several times to MP Customer Service over the past few days and the
ruling is a max of 4x plus class-of-service bonuses for Premier
Executives and above. However the
case is being referred to the legal and marketing departments for
additional study. I was told to expect an answer in a week.
I
went over in detail with the original T&C phrase
[Early Bird triple] "Bonus is in
addition to paid flight miles and any applicable elite and
class-of-service bonuses."
I used the example
300% Early Bird
triple
bonus
100% paid flight
miles
100% elite bonus
(in my case)
0%
class-of-service bonuses (in my case).
400% total I think
someone flunked arithmetic class 
.
Contact Info
Mileage
Plus Customer Relations
Customer
Relations
WHQPW
P.O. Box 66100
Chicago, IL 60666
USA
Other Contacts:
Those of you that are UGS or 1K
should also contact the special phone
numbers and/or email addresses.
Mileage
Plus Service Center
In USA
1-800-421-4655
Executives:
Martin C. White
Senior Vice President - Marketing
1200 E. Algonquin Road
Elk Grove Village, IL 60007
USA
Phone
number for executive offices, +1 847 700-4000
Names of other directors and officers can be found
here
If you have email
replies from UA,
comments and suggestions about this page, please send me email earlybird@genefowler.com. I will try as best a possible to get
back to you quickly. I have been getting so many emails that I will not
be able to respond to all of you individually, but I will reply.
Starting Feb 26, 2004 and until April 10, 2004 I will be traveling
most of the time (another 45K at 5X). I hope this will all be resolved
before then. Please note in the email if you wish that the info
not to be published on this page.
Thanks to ozstamps for the idea that I use for the original
page
title UA moved the goalposts
Gene Fowler (gfowler-ord-1k on
FlyerTalk.com)
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