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Reader NPM writes in:

A few months ago, my wife and I received two United Airlines paper vouchers for $75 each to make up for an awful flight experience we had, with a delay of several hours for mechanical reasons and a non-working in-flight entertainment system.

Last month I decided to redeem these vouchers to buy two tickets from Chicago to NY City. I went on the United website and found two (ORD-LGA) tickets for $168.61 each. The fare was eligible/covered by the vouchers — I checked the fine print. Since you can’t finalize the reservation online and use the vouchers to pay for part of the tickets, I placed the tickets on hold and called United reservation service.

The representative told me I couldn’t use the vouchers with that fare and proposed instead I buy two tickets for the same flights for $198.61, effectively turning my $75 vouchers into $45 vouchers. Ugly. I complained a bit but since there was nothing she could do, I ended up buying the tickets…

A few days later, I checked my credit card statement and United charged me a $30 “ticket mailing fee” with my order, despite the fact that the tickets are electronic. This decreased the value of each value to $30. To add insult to injury their online system works so poorly that when I tried to enter my wife’s Mileage Plus number on her reservation, it requested a wheelchair for her instead. Thanks, but no thanks! Bye, bye United!

Ahh, the customer service voucher. A gesture of goodwill that turns around and creates more ill will when people try to redeem it. Sorry to hear you had such trouble.

United’s policy is asinine on so many levels. At the time the certificate is issued, it seems like they’re apologizing, and the voucher feels like a good-faith effort to make things right. Then they piss that goodwill away by making the redemption process a chore — and discounting the value of the voucher.

You say that the ticket was eligible for voucher use according to the terms on the back of the certificate. (Some booking codes are ineligible for voucher use, but those letter codes are outlined on the piece of paper.) At that point, you should have asked to speak with a supervisor when the agent denied your request to use the certificate for an eligible itinerary.

The $15/ticket fee they charged for “ticket by mail” is unfortunately simply their phone center charge. But this is a case where the airline is demanding the impossible: They charge you money for using their call center, instead of booking online. But with a voucher, you have no other booking option EXCEPT on the phone, or at an airport, both of which incur a fee. Frankly, the Federal Trade Commission might be interested…

At this point, I’d advise you to write to United’s customer relations. State that you feel that a refund of $90 is due to you — the value that your vouchers went down in value, thanks to the airline’s games. If they take more than two weeks to respond, or if the answer is not to your satisfaction, call or write again. But be warned: They might just send you more vouchers…