An airline lesson in how not to conduct business

The issue

Yesterday it was discovered that there was a glitch on United's website that allowed you to book tickets nearly for free. Here's how it worked:

1. Search for the flights you want using "Award" search

2. Open a new tab and search for the same flights using "Price" search

3. Refresh the first "Award" search tab

4. Refresh the "Price" search tab.

On the "Price" tab, the airfare cost suddenly disappeared, leaving the total price to be paid of just the taxes and fees on a ticket (~$5 for a domestic roundtrip).

I myself took advantage of this to book my girlfriend and me two first-class tickets to Australia for her school's spring break. I also booked my family a first-class New Year's trip to Israel, and my friends and I booked Montreal and Las Vegas for weekends. 

United's response

Well when a similar glitch happened a month ago, United decided to honor the mistake fares that were purchased. United was very proactive about deciding this and I applaud them for the customer-friendly move they made.

Not so this time.

This time around, a few lucky bookers of mistake fares sent tweets to United asking whether they would be honored. United sent this exact response to all of them:

"This is an intentional manipulation of our website. Resv won’t be ticketed or honored unless the required miles are available."

They sent this to every single person who tweeted at them about the glitch. Seriously, go look at their Twitter replies. But to my knowledge this was their only communication about the glitch. No press release or spokesperson commenting on it. Nothing remotely like what happened last month.

I personally received no communication from United about my reservations other than the confirmation email that the reservation had been purchased (but not yet ticketed). This afternoon, 24 hours after my original booking, the reservations suddenly disappeared from my frequent flyer account. 

My take

Personally I can understand the decision United made. Last time the fare was quoted as $0, whereas this time the price was quoted in miles and the site just didn't deduct the miles from your account at the time of booking. What I take issue with was how United handled this.

First, look at that tweet reply above. To me that is awfully accusatory. Yes, customers had to do something a little funky to the site to make it show the mistake prices. But as a company if you make a mistake, blaming your customers for taking advantage of it is nonsensical in my opinion.

Second, why wasn't I emailed that my reservation had been cancelled. What if I genuinely thought I had enough miles in my account and was booking something legitimate? It's possible it would have taken me until I got to the airport the day I was flying to discover my reservation had been erased. And I bet there's at least one person that this happens to. 

Finally, why no public comment? All the articles mentioning it quote United's Twitter account. That's just no way to make an official statement.

If I were running United I probably wouldn't have honored those mistake fares yesterday either. But I sure would have handled the situation differently.