United Airlines is in trouble and it's because of me

For about 20 years, I flew only United Airlines (UAL) for work and leisure, and I had a United credit card as did the school where I was Director. I even signed up for their dining and shopping programs to earn more miles. I had a few vacations using United miles I brought my mother-in-law to visit several times using miles and the school sent several teachers to conferences using miles. Until one day United took them all away.

I hadn't flown for a while, although I was still using the shopping and dining programs. I think it was about a year, but it was certainly no more than 18 months. The annual conference for the program we were running came around, on theo ther coast. and I went to the United Mileage Plus members page to book a flight. All was kosher until the "pay with miles" page. I had a zero balance instead of the 200,000 miles or so I should have had.

So I went to the activity page and a few days before, the entire balance had been zeroed out wth a refrence number but no commentary. I called, but after an hour of Gershwin I gave up. I called twice more, more Gershwin. So I sent an email. Then a second.

The response was that because of a lack of activity, my miles had expired as laid out in the agreement which I had signed. I mentioned my 20 years of loyalty and that I was still earning miles by shopping, dining and using the credit card. This was ignored in the reply. Instead, I was told that they had sent me emails warning me of the pending dissolution. (And it was all my fault!!)

I wrote back explaning that I had not received any such messages, although I was still receiving the monthly statements which did not display any such warnings, and seemingly daily promotional messages. I asked, how could all of thse get to me but not this one? Could I have my miles back?

Crickets.

I re-sent the email twice more, but to each, nothing.

So the school changed credit cards and thus loyalty programs, worth nearing a million dollars of annual transactions to the card company. Over the years and with growth and inflation, that likely cost $30 million worth of swipe fees to the card company and 100 or so flights, baggage fees, inflight purchases etc to United.

We changed our credit card to a Delta card and joined the Delta Skymiles program which, with flights, promotion and card miles, adds up to approximately 70.000 miles a year (you do the math!).

We will never return to United, and although that's only four of us, I have also told everyone who asks of my experience. I am sure that many did not book flights with United and that some went to Delta and stayed there. The experience still angers me: the theft of my miles and the arrogance and disrespect of both that and the subsequent interactions.

So while my title above may be a little hyperbolic, if United treated other customers like they treated me, their failure is completely understandable and explainable.