[twilsonny]

I have been waiting since March 2012 for 25k miles to deposit into my United FF account after converting 70k Marriott points. No reply to the email form, so I called. Message estimates wait time for an agent is 3 minutes, so I waited. 42 minutes later, I finally get an Agent. He says it would take a week. I said it had already been 7 weeks. I was placed on hold. Agent says it will take 72 hours. I asked why? do they not have the information? I was placed on hold again. Agent says they will try to take care of it within 24 hours. 4 days later, no credit, so I tried calling back. Message estimates wait time for an agent is 3 minutes, so I waited. 46 minutes later and I'm still holding. The flights I originally wanted to book are now no longer available.

Thanks for nothing United

[Ombudsman]

Have you contacted Marriott Rewards to verify the error was not on their end? Did you use a third-party such as Points.com for the transaction or was it done on Marriott's website?

[twilsonny]

Their records indicated acknowledgment had been received from United on March 31.

I made yet another call to MP customer service, and the same routine, message indicates a waiting time of 4 minutes, and I was on hold for an hour. This time I asked to speak directly to a supervisor. The agent was obviously reluctant to do that without first making an effort to resolve the issue, so it took me a further 14 minutes relating what had hapened before the agent agreed to transfer me.

Within 2 minutes, the supervisor said she could see the transaction from Marriott on 3/31, and saw what the problem was. The transaction type code entered by UAL was wrong, so it was being repeatedly erroring out. She corrected the code, and processed the transaction, and voila, my account was credited.

During the remainder of the conversation, she confirmed to me that there was no record at all of my earlier phone calls or correspondence. She also confirmed that there should have been, so clearly some agents are not recording details of customer complaints. She could not explain why no other agent that I had spoken to was able to see the same error, or why their system had not been updated to reflect the change in transaction codes. All she advised, was that I should contact Customer Service if I wished to log a complaint!

So I finally have the miles, unfortunately the trip I had planned to the London Olympics with my 2 daughters will have to be a short one, because I will have to buy the flights with cash now, instead of using that money for lodging and meals to extend the vacation. Maybe I should move the whole 180k miles back to Marriott?