Questions and Answers

I recently used 150K mileage plus miles for a LHR –> SFO business class flight. Unfortunately it was pretty unpleasant since my seat did not properly recline (one of the motors was broken) and my headphone jack was broken. The wifi also did not work but, to be fair, that affected everyone.

United gave me a complaint number which I used online to file my complaint. I eventually got an email offering me 10,000 miles as compensation.

I think this is insufficient for the following reason: an economy award ticket is 65K miles while the business ticket is 150K miles, meaning that United views the business experience as 2.3 times as good as economy. I certainly agree with that. But with the 10,000 mile compensation they gave me, it means I effectively used 140K miles for an experience that was not close to being twice as good as economy.

Do you think I was lowballed by United?

Stuart, in the end you have to decide what compensation is sufficient for you since everyone values things differently. You could google “united broken business seat compensation” and see what other people have received. You could also write a polite response to United with your rationale and ask for more compensation and see what happens. Good luck!

I can’t make an argument for what the appropriate compensation would be but in terms of my experience with AA it sounds about right. On a recent AA TATL flight I had a defective outlet in J which I reported and for which I later received 1000 miles. What’s really upsetting is how these planes go out with so many faults unchecked. In my case, I had the same seat assignment for the return flight a week later and I switched seats on my AA App immediately after discovering the problem. And the guy sitting in my seat on the inbound flight a week later had the same problem.