United: Miles and Money booking – won’t process and no-one to talk to
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Hi,
I’m in the UK> I’m trying to make Miles and Money bookings for my wife and I on United (MKE to WYS). All goes fine until we try to pay and the booking fails. Says its a credit card issue. Have tried 3 different credit cards – all working fine, but same result. Spoke with Amex. They said my card fine but it looks to them like an issue at United’s end.Tried calling the UK call centre – they can’t process Miles and Money bookings.
Went onto Twitter. Initially v helpful. Could see the problem. They arranged for an agent to call me from the US. He got stuck. Said he wouuld sort it and get back to me. Then plan was for them to call me the next day to take the payments. Never called back. Several Twitter messages sent and no reply to any of them now. Tried webchat. They say Miles and Cash booking has to be made online only – they can’t sort it at the Customer Call Centre! Suggested I submit a complaint – but advised it would take 14 working days to get an initial email response!
So, I’m stuck. Any thoughts please of a way to progress this/speak to someone who can fix it? For the avoidance of doubt, I don’t have enough miles for a Miles only flight and I’d much prefer not to have to pay in full in cash. This will be a good way for me to use up the limited number of miles I have.
TIA
G
This crops up now and then with US airlines not liking foreign credit cards. Can you try using the United app and paying with Apple Pay?
Try a debit card, otherwise there’s no real way to get this fixed.
US airlines and companies do not look past their own borders/financial systems in terms of testing. A complaint will get you a generic “sorry and we’ll try and do better next time but we love our customers” email.
If you don’t have something like a Wise account that allows multi currency I would recommend them. You can get a virtual debit card in the app (or pay £4.5 for a physical one), transfer enough GBP onto it to cover your USD requirement and then try that virtual debit card.
I’ve found it helps when you can pay a US company in USD. There’s fewer hoops to jump through.Just a guess, but could it be falling over on your podtcode?
Have you tried switching out your UK postcode for a zip code? Eg EH1 1YZ becomes 11000, SW1A 2AA becomes 12000, or PH3 1NF becomes 31000.
Try a debit card, otherwise there’s no real way to get this fixed.
US airlines and companies do not look past their own borders/financial systems in terms of testing. A complaint will get you a generic “sorry and we’ll try and do better next time but we love our customers” email.
If you don’t have something like a Wise account that allows multi currency I would recommend them. You can get a virtual debit card in the app (or pay £4.5 for a physical one), transfer enough GBP onto it to cover your USD requirement and then try that virtual debit card.
I’ve found it helps when you can pay a US company in USD. There’s fewer hoops to jump through.The merchant won’t see the USD currency sitting in a Wise pot – their cards are UK issued Visa debit with a default currency of GBP. In that sense, it’s not different than paying in USD with any other UK issued Visa card to the merchant.
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