Oh, Fuck You, United

Just on a whim I decided to look up my miles on Delta and United.  Delta was fine.  United was not.  I had about 42,000 miles on it, and I my heart sank when it told me I had a balance of zero.

United demands that there be activity on an account within 18 months or else the airline will take them all away.  Flying on them works, obviously.  So does donating them, or at least I think.  That's why I spent some time, a couple times a year at most, going to United and donating, oh, 500 miles to keep my account active.

I swear I did that at some point in the last year-and-a-half.  I swear.  On my days of unemployment I went to Caribou in the mornings and I did just that -- at least once in 2016, and probably twice even though I didn't have to.

The problem is is that I have no track record of it.  I was never given a receipt of the 500 miles I know I gave last year.  I have never received a receipt.  The last noted transaction United said I had, donating 500 miles to some charity in June 2015, I also never got a receipt for.  I didn't think much of it because I assumed that they got the record of me donating 500 miles.

And there's another problem.  I signed up for United's regular newsletter, and -- now that I am in a panic that all my 42,000 miles are now gone -- I see, in fairly large type, the exact number of miles I have, and the expiration date United gave me.  I just perused the monthly newsletters going back to July 2015 (obviously with a lot more attention than when I received them the first time) and it's the exact same number ... which was the exact number of miles United took away from me.  Again, I swear that I donated last year, and I told them so on the e-mail I just sent them through the airline's website.  But I fear that they could just come back with, "But sir, you had a monthly reminder of how many miles we say you had in your account, as well as the date at which they would expire, so don't say we didn't warn you."

Oh, by the way, United took these miles from me February 1 -- Wednesday, just three days ago.  If only I knew.  If only I realized. ...

If this e-mail beg doesn't work -- or if I didn't donate miles in 2016 like I thought I did, or if donating miles no longer counts as keeping your account active -- I can get my miles, some of which I accrued back when I flew to Europe after graduating from high school, reinstated.  At a cost.  Of $200.  And after I picked my jaw back off the floor, I decided that I was A-O-damn-K with paying that $200 to get my miles back.  Because 42,000+ is a hell of a lot of miles.  And I cannot part with miles I got way back in 1994.

You know, I paid $275 as a fee to turn in a Stanford MBA application that is so weak the school probably has already rejected it.  Retrieving these miles will be the second outrageously exorbitant waste of money I have spent in 2017.  I could use that $475 to pay off the ticket to go see Grandmother in Hong Kong.  But instead I am spending it on a useless application and getting these non-tangible miles back.  My God, what in the hell is wrong with me???

Oh yeah -- I just looked at the title.  I much prefer Delta now because Delta's miles never expire!!!  Go suck it, United!!!