United Airlines Defeats Silver Wings Membership Program Class Action

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

On Monday, an Illinois federal judge granted summary judgment in favor of United Airlines, effectively putting an end to a class action lawsuit accusing the airline of breaching consumer contracts by failing to provide “Silver Wings” discount benefits to lifelong members of the program.

U.S. District Judge Robert M. Dow Jr. found that plaintiff Howard S. Neft failed to show he had been harmed by United’s termination of the senior discount program.

United established the Silver Wings Plus program in 1986, offering customers aged 55 and up benefits such as flight discounts, bonus miles, and mileage- and geographic zone-based airfares. The Silver Wings program also offered benefits through United’s travel partners such as cruises, car rentals and hotels.

Customers could become members of the Silver Wings program by paying a membership fee. The fee amount varied based on when the membership was purchased and whether the customer purchased an annual or lifetime membership.

Neft says he paid $225 for a lifetime Silver Wings membership in 2000. He claims that the contract to which he agreed included zoned airfares, a benefit that he believed would remain in effect throughout his lifetime.

The judge was skeptical of Neft’s claims, finding that the membership materials from the time Neft enrolled in the Silver Wings program through at least 2005 included provisions indicating that the terms, policies and conditions of Silver Wings Plus services were subject to change at any time, and the Silver Wings program could be terminated by United with 12 months’ notice.

Neft reportedly said that he was told by United agents that the Silver Wings program had been discontinued and that no zoned airfares were available. However, the judge notes that Neft failed to provide any evidence that these alleged misrepresentations caused him any injury.

Further, the judge found that United has represented that it continues to offer zoned fares to Silver Wings lifetime members, and seemingly continues to do so.

“Between January 1, 2007 and January 30, 2016, there were 5,048 Silver Wings zoned fare bookings, with zoned fare bookings taking place every year,” the judge wrote in his order. “Defendant did not make any of these bookings.”

The judge points to Neft’s statement that he “basically forgot about” the Silver Wings program in the early 2000s until about 2013. United allegedly issued 43 tickets to Neft during this timeframe, none of which were purchased using zoned airfare even though it was available to Neft.

Neft was seeking a refund of the one-time $225 Silver Wings lifetime membership fee, but the judge says that this remedy is no longer available to him because the terms and conditions clearly stated that the membership fee was refundable only during the first 90 days of membership.

United previously sought to have the Silver Wings class action lawsuit dismissed, but its motion to dismiss was denied on Jan. 3, 2017.

Neft is represented by Anthony S. DiVencenzo and Robert J. Stein III of DiVincenzo Schoenfield Schwartzman.

The United Airlines Silver Wings Lifetime Membership Class Action Lawsuit is Howard S. Neft v. United Continental Holdings Inc., Case No. 1:16-cv-00765, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.