Assuming a minimum of 5 minutes per complaint, then he would have spent 16 hours and 40 minutes complaining. 10 minutes each would be 33 hours and 20 minutes complaining.

If you figure those miles are worth $.01 each, then 68.5K worth are $685. Added to the $5125 in dollar off certificates and he’s up to $5810.

So, without valuing the upgrades and figuring 10 minutes each would mean he’s making $174.47/hour for doing this. Sounds pretty good. Until they get taken away. He could still put together an e-book on “How to Complain for Compensation – and when to STOP.” I’d be interested in seeing that e-book.

Economy seats with 21 day advance purchase from DEN to SEA are about $250. $5125 would buy 20.5 of these. They earn 1024 X 2 miles. You could earn 41984 EQM from those flights, if they were such that United gave you miles for flights using the certificates.

As has been pointed out, obviously United had problems in their customer service system that Yen exposed. Instead of freezing his miles, they should give him a bonus for that! And then have him flagged in the system for reduced compensation for verified issues. :-)

It is possible that he did actually “earn” over 100K miles in addition to the 68.5K miles for complaints, but had already used some so that when the did adjust his account by 108.5K miles, he had none available for use.

Lessons from this: Complaining about a real issue in the right way can be lucrative. Complaining too much gets you in trouble.

Why would Mr. Yen give repeat business to an airline that he felt had given him so many problems as to necessitate 200 phone calls in such a short time frame if he wasn’t purposefully exploiting the loopholes he’d discovered with UA’s good faith attempts to retain him as a happy customer?

Also, does Mr. Yen dispute that many of his miles were accrued via duplicate compensation for issues UA had already resolved with him, as UA contends in their letter?

Ask yourself honestly people – if you had to complain 200 times in six months to any company, would you still choose do business with them? Short of Mr. Yen figuring out how to exploit the system for freebies, I can’t think of any other reason he would continue to do business with UA if he felt so strongly that they treated him so poorly as to require 200 complaints.

He played the system and he got caught. That’s his own fault.

I am starting to think that giving people perks to make up for shortcomings in customer service is the wrong way to go.

That depends on what those shortcomings are in each and every case. Some are justified while others aren’t, but some people still demand businesses compensate them for those that weren’t in their complete control to fix.

True story: a customer booked for a hotel room online. The page stated every applicable rule.

The customer called a few days later and complained to a fellow travel agent we didn’t “notify” him the hotel won’t accept him because he was below the minimum 21-age rule. He demanded some form of compensation for what he perceived was our fault, and that’s inspite of the page stating that age bit to begin with.

The agent, burdened with meeting his center’s targets, had “apologized” for what happened and gave him a coupon for his next hotel reservation. Off the customer went.

When I took his call a day or two after that, he complained he couldn’t get the coupon to work. I honestly thought this guy didn’t deserve the coupon upon reading the circumstances of his original issue, but…I had little to no choice but to follow through on the coupon and fix it as he “threatened” to go to the media about that.

Naturally this created a dilemma: many of us are familiar with the “customer is always right” motto. Many of us surely want to please our customers, but it can potentially unrealistic expectations that possibly and unfairly burden businesses to try accomodating them all.

Like Carver said, there’s plenty of blame to go around. IMHO, the question is what’s one prepared to do if/when that happens.

Looks like United is in this discussion. Is everyone else prepared?

If someone has a problem that costs them money, that’s one thing, but how about a promise to fix the problem?

I know the last several times I had a problem, I didn’t want money or a free lunch, just for them to fix it and not have to deal with it again.