Mileage Between Some City Pairs is Different After System Integration-Resolved by UA.
Mar 5, 2012, 3:34 pm
#91
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: SEA/YYZ
Posts: 1,561
Can UAInsider please explain these changes in mileage between city pairs?
Mar 5, 2012, 4:48 pm
#92
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: LAX/VNY (Hometown: CAK)
Programs: Hyatt Explorist, IHG Platinum, Bonvoy Gold, Regal Diamond
Posts: 743
I mentioned my suspicion earlier in the thread, but I am now pretty convinced that the discrepancies are the result of using a great-circle formula that assumes Earth is a sphere instead of the more accurate Vincenty's formula that assumes Earth is an oblate spheroid.
If you want to test for yourself, use http://www.gcmap.com/ to get the result using Vincenty's formula. Then paste the lat/long of the airports into the boxes at http://www.movable-type.co.uk/scripts/latlong.html, which uses calculations that assume a spherical Earth.
Now whether this was intentional or simply an uninformed programmer using the wrong formula is up for debate. As they say, never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. But it certainly is possible UA did a study and found using the less accurate formula would lead to fewer miles being awarded. And given that nearly every route changed, I would hope the changes would have never made it through QA without UA management signing off on them.
If you want to test for yourself, use http://www.gcmap.com/ to get the result using Vincenty's formula. Then paste the lat/long of the airports into the boxes at http://www.movable-type.co.uk/scripts/latlong.html, which uses calculations that assume a spherical Earth.
Now whether this was intentional or simply an uninformed programmer using the wrong formula is up for debate. As they say, never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. But it certainly is possible UA did a study and found using the less accurate formula would lead to fewer miles being awarded. And given that nearly every route changed, I would hope the changes would have never made it through QA without UA management signing off on them.
In fact, the website BayAreaPilot provided states:
[In fact, the earth is very slightly ellipsoidal; using a spherical model gives errors typically up to 0.3% – see notes for further details].
This means that errors from assuming spherical geometry might be up to 0.55% crossing the equator, though generally below 0.3%, depending on latitude and direction of travel.
This means that errors from assuming spherical geometry might be up to 0.55% crossing the equator, though generally below 0.3%, depending on latitude and direction of travel.
My NRT-HKG route gained 11 miles, despite it being a much shorter route than the closer-to-the-Equator HKG-SIN route, which only gained 3.
Though I have to disagree that this was intentional -- differences of a few miles on routes would probably the least of the integration team's worries when reviewing the functionality of the combined system. Even if they noticed the minor changes, they might chalk it up to rounding, an inconsistency in the two airlines' databases, or some other reason, and move on, choosing to spend their time focusing on the most-important issues.
In hindsight, it can generate millions of savings for United (since, if my hypothesis is right regarding direction of travel, there are fewer passenger seat-miles in generally north-south routes than there are in east-west routes), but I doubt that UA management (1) noticed this and (2) signed off on it.
Mar 5, 2012, 4:51 pm
#93
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: LAX
Programs: DL-PM | UA-1K | HH-Gold
Posts: 938
Shannon has been asked a number of times to address this in the systems integration master thread. It hasn't been added to the list of official "cock ups" that the airline is trying to fix. I wouldn't hold my breath until every other more serious operational issue is addressed (and that, it would appear, is going to take quite some time).
Mar 5, 2012, 8:58 pm
#94
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: IAD/DCA
Programs: AA PP, Hilton/MR Gold
Posts: 743
I mentioned my suspicion earlier in the thread, but I am now pretty convinced that the discrepancies are the result of using a great-circle formula that assumes Earth is a sphere instead of the more accurate Vincenty's formula that assumes Earth is an oblate spheroid.
If you want to test for yourself, use http://www.gcmap.com/ to get the result using Vincenty's formula. Then paste the lat/long of the airports into the boxes at http://www.movable-type.co.uk/scripts/latlong.html, which uses calculations that assume a spherical Earth.
Now whether this was intentional or simply an uninformed programmer using the wrong formula is up for debate. As they say, never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. But it certainly is possible UA did a study and found using the less accurate formula would lead to fewer miles being awarded. And given that nearly every route changed, I would hope the changes would have never made it through QA without UA management signing off on them.
If you want to test for yourself, use http://www.gcmap.com/ to get the result using Vincenty's formula. Then paste the lat/long of the airports into the boxes at http://www.movable-type.co.uk/scripts/latlong.html, which uses calculations that assume a spherical Earth.
Now whether this was intentional or simply an uninformed programmer using the wrong formula is up for debate. As they say, never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. But it certainly is possible UA did a study and found using the less accurate formula would lead to fewer miles being awarded. And given that nearly every route changed, I would hope the changes would have never made it through QA without UA management signing off on them.
This is simply unreal.
Mar 5, 2012, 9:07 pm
#95
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Washington DC
Programs: Former 1k, Lifetime UA Gold, Starwood Gold; Avis Preferred; Hertz Gold
Posts: 1,732
The departure screens at SFO still showed 2419 today for flight to IAD. This leads me to believe its a screw up on the internal systems.
Mar 5, 2012, 10:09 pm
#96
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Las Vegas
Programs: DL Platinum, AA Lifetime Gold, Hilton Diamond, Marriott Platinum, Radisson Premium
Posts: 6,638
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)
Well my pmua miles just vanished but I can confirm I Only received 1839 eqm for ord-sfo instead of 1846. Ugh! Please fix this. This is NOT right
Well my pmua miles just vanished but I can confirm I Only received 1839 eqm for ord-sfo instead of 1846. Ugh! Please fix this. This is NOT right
Mar 5, 2012, 10:18 pm
#97
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Northeast Kansas | Colorado Native
Programs: Amex Gold/Plat, UA *G, Hyatt Globalist, Marriott LT Gold, NEXUS, TSA Disparager Unobtanium
Posts: 21,603
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)
Well my pmua miles just vanished but I can confirm I Only received 1839 eqm for ord-sfo instead of 1846. Ugh! Please fix this. This is NOT right
Well my pmua miles just vanished but I can confirm I Only received 1839 eqm for ord-sfo instead of 1846. Ugh! Please fix this. This is NOT right
I see credit for MCI-SFO on 3/2 in my COdbaUA account, although it's less than I would have gotten under PMUA.. I may call MP and ask for the corrected mileage as it says on my confirmation that I should have gotten 1498, not 1494.. No guarantees that it will work, but you never know.
Mar 5, 2012, 10:22 pm
#98
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Las Vegas
Programs: DL Platinum, AA Lifetime Gold, Hilton Diamond, Marriott Platinum, Radisson Premium
Posts: 6,638
I think the calls are going to start piling up so we'll probably get an answer ASAP on this. BTW, did you also lose all of your PMUA EQM's as this flight posted?
As of now it's showing
Year to Date Premier Miles: 4,237
Year to Date Premier Segments: 26.5
When in reality YTD PQM = 65K+. Segment info is still correct.
ORD-SFO posting:
2/29/2012 United 383G
Chicago (ORD)-San Francisco G / G 1839 1,839 3678 1,839
Unless Chicago and San Fran got 7 miles closer together, the system screwed me out of 7 PQM and 14 RDM.
Hopefully the fix for both of these can be automatic. Man, it just seems like everything's getting worse when everything was fine yesterday.
As of now it's showing
Year to Date Premier Miles: 4,237
Year to Date Premier Segments: 26.5
When in reality YTD PQM = 65K+. Segment info is still correct.
ORD-SFO posting:
2/29/2012 United 383G
Chicago (ORD)-San Francisco G / G 1839 1,839 3678 1,839
Unless Chicago and San Fran got 7 miles closer together, the system screwed me out of 7 PQM and 14 RDM.
Hopefully the fix for both of these can be automatic. Man, it just seems like everything's getting worse when everything was fine yesterday.
Mar 5, 2012, 10:23 pm
#99
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: SJC
Programs: UA 1K
Posts: 609
The timetable at http://timetable.continental.com/siteb/co.pdf still has the old mileage amounts. Of course it also has the 500 mile minimum, which is only for elites.
Mar 5, 2012, 10:25 pm
#100
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Las Vegas
Programs: DL Platinum, AA Lifetime Gold, Hilton Diamond, Marriott Platinum, Radisson Premium
Posts: 6,638
Sure hope the folks at DL and AA are watching. Their chief competitor now gives you less miles on pretty much every flight!
Mar 5, 2012, 10:47 pm
#101
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: SF Bay Area
Programs: UA 1K MM, Marriott Life Plat, various others of little note
Posts: 2,763
I think the calls are going to start piling up so we'll probably get an answer ASAP on this. BTW, did you also lose all of your PMUA EQM's as this flight posted?
As of now it's showing
Year to Date Premier Miles: 4,237
Year to Date Premier Segments: 26.5
When in reality YTD PQM = 65K+. Segment info is still correct.
ORD-SFO posting:
2/29/2012 United 383G
Chicago (ORD)-San Francisco G / G 1839 1,839 3678 1,839
Unless Chicago and San Fran got 7 miles closer together, the system screwed me out of 7 PQM and 14 RDM.
Hopefully the fix for both of these can be automatic. Man, it just seems like everything's getting worse when everything was fine yesterday.
As of now it's showing
Year to Date Premier Miles: 4,237
Year to Date Premier Segments: 26.5
When in reality YTD PQM = 65K+. Segment info is still correct.
ORD-SFO posting:
2/29/2012 United 383G
Chicago (ORD)-San Francisco G / G 1839 1,839 3678 1,839
Unless Chicago and San Fran got 7 miles closer together, the system screwed me out of 7 PQM and 14 RDM.
Hopefully the fix for both of these can be automatic. Man, it just seems like everything's getting worse when everything was fine yesterday.
Mar 5, 2012, 10:50 pm
#102
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Las Vegas
Programs: DL Platinum, AA Lifetime Gold, Hilton Diamond, Marriott Platinum, Radisson Premium
Posts: 6,638
OK. Guess this is something that affected most everybody. I'm sure we'll hear something soon...tomorrow probably considering the late hour
Mar 5, 2012, 10:53 pm
#103
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Northeast Kansas | Colorado Native
Programs: Amex Gold/Plat, UA *G, Hyatt Globalist, Marriott LT Gold, NEXUS, TSA Disparager Unobtanium
Posts: 21,603
I think the calls are going to start piling up so we'll probably get an answer ASAP on this. BTW, did you also lose all of your PMUA EQM's as this flight posted?
As of now it's showing
Year to Date Premier Miles: 4,237
Year to Date Premier Segments: 26.5
When in reality YTD PQM = 65K+. Segment info is still correct.
ORD-SFO posting:
2/29/2012 United 383G
Chicago (ORD)-San Francisco G / G 1839 1,839 3678 1,839
Unless Chicago and San Fran got 7 miles closer together, the system screwed me out of 7 PQM and 14 RDM.
Hopefully the fix for both of these can be automatic. Man, it just seems like everything's getting worse when everything was fine yesterday.
As of now it's showing
Year to Date Premier Miles: 4,237
Year to Date Premier Segments: 26.5
When in reality YTD PQM = 65K+. Segment info is still correct.
ORD-SFO posting:
2/29/2012 United 383G
Chicago (ORD)-San Francisco G / G 1839 1,839 3678 1,839
Unless Chicago and San Fran got 7 miles closer together, the system screwed me out of 7 PQM and 14 RDM.
Hopefully the fix for both of these can be automatic. Man, it just seems like everything's getting worse when everything was fine yesterday.
Mar 5, 2012, 10:56 pm
#104
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Aug 2003
Programs: UA 1K 1MM (finally!), IHG AMB-Spire, HH Diamond
Posts: 60,174
And yes, I lost all my PMUA EQMs suddenly too. They were day on day 1 (march 3). My status has changed also since March 3.
Mar 5, 2012, 11:25 pm
#105
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: MSP/BUF/BNA/LFT
Programs: AA Plat, Priority Club Gold, Choice Privileges Gold
Posts: 1,225
That is my beef with this as well. I wouldn't really care as long as the changes were consistent. I really don't understand how DEN can be closer to both LAX and MSP.