United Airline’s Red Carpet Club, like Delta’s Crown Room and American’s Admirals Club, is a favored refuge of frequent travelers.
Though the annual membership dues have been going up and sometimes it’s often hard to find a place to sit down, the lounges are still usually an order of magnitude more comfortable than waiting by the gate, especially as it gets closer to boarding time and the general anxiety level rises in the boarding area. Besides, being able to slip into a secret, out-of-the-way lounge makes everyone feel special.
While the snacks are nothing to write home about, they’re better than nothing. Plus Red Carpet Club members, with the upcoming merger with Continental, are getting a bonus. Limited cocktails, beer and wine are free.
The basic Red Carpet fee now per year is $475, plus $225 for a spouse or partner. There is an option to use miles instead, 62,500 and 30,000 additional for the spouse option and there are some discounts for elite members.
Previously, United had been relatively generous with expiration dates, and renewals often got members a few extra weeks. Not anymore. If a card is valid through July 1, the new card will expire June 30 of the following year.
One of my clients let his membership lapse in 2009, which now results in ANOTHER fee ($50) for reinstatement. So, this year he decided to be proactive. His card was due to expire December 15, 2010. In mid-November he called and told the Red Carpet Club agent he wanted to use miles for renewal.
The agent told him the new card was processed and tht he should receive the new card before his current card expired. If, for some reason, he didn’t receive the renewal card, the information would be in United’s database. Anyone who has signed up for membership recently has probably had to tell Red Carpet agents that their card is in the mail. It’s a simple computer check, and no one I know has had a problem with it.
When the card arrived, it had an expiration date of November 14, 2011. He had paid for a year and only received eleven months membership.
So the client got on the phone again, where the woman apologized but said they couldn’t reprint the card. And couldn’t come up with a reason why they hadn’t simply made the new card valid until December 14, 2011. (United knew it was a renewal, so it wasn’t giving him an overlapping card by mistake.)
This particular traveler is not an elite frequent flier, but he is an ex-Marine, and politely but firmly kept the United agent on the phone for some time. Apparently she nicely made various excuses, but then finally went to talk to talk a supervisor, and they agreed to credit him pro-rated miles for the missing month rather than simply extend his membership to the proper expiration date.
In the grand scheme of things, paying for a month extra on an airport club membership isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a traveler. But, it’s certainly annoying, and with the cost of about $40 a month, it’s real money — the cost of a nice lunch for two or well over a week’s worth of lattes, for example.
The client who told me the story and showed me the cards, said he could have very easily missed the mistake. It was just that the hassle of his expired card last year and that extra $50 fee had fixed the date in his mind.
In addition, in an era where airlines go to a great deal of trouble for a few extra dollars and are constantly raising the prices of fees for onboard food, etc., a paranoid mind might wonder if shorting memberships is deliberate.
I wouldn’t go so far as to accuse United of anything but incompetence in this case. But let’s hope this kind of “mistake” doesn’t start happening more often.
Janice Hough is a California-based travel agent a travel blogger and a part-time comedy writer. A frequent flier herself, she’s been doing battle with airlines, hotels, and other travel companies for over three decades. Besides writing for Travelers United, Janice has a humor blog at Leftcoastsportsbabe.com (Warning, the political and sports humor therein does not represent the views of anyone but herself.)
