exerda

I, too, am extremely unlucky then... my last two e-certs I had to call to apply took over an hour each. Well, one of those was NOT SHARES' fault since it was PMUA--I blame the fact that Web Support is in India for that one. The other was SHARES, though, as it was about a month ago.

estnet

Then I guess my experiences are laughable as well (NOT)! Over 90 minutes to book sfo-sin with an agent that couldn't be booked on online! Almost two hours on hold (with agent coming on periodically telling me she had 2 supervisors working on it) for a refund of award miles that had not been credited as promised! Etc., etc. Just b/c you've been lucky is no reason to denigrate others experiences

star_world

How do you know it was "SHARES" and not inadequate training of the agents? That has been the single biggest issue with this merger, IMO. It's a new system and is command-line based (a reality, whether you like it or not - cue the 12 or so people who will cry "it's a MASSIVE step backwards!") - but guess what? Go back and look on the PMCO board and see how many threads you can find that referred to ridiculously long wait times for simple transactions - apart from those by channa who had a black mark against his name on CO's systems for at least a decade - you'll struggle to find any.

They need vastly more training for the huge PMUA workforce before we have any chance of agents being able to offer predictable, high quality service. That's why you pray that you get a PMCO agent that answers the phone and can make reservations like this in their sleep.

I'm not denigrating anything - I'm pointing out that a repeat offender in the hyperbole department is full of - well, hyperbole. Agenda-filled hyperbole. And as long as it remains as ridiculously one-sided, it will always be laughable. I mean what I say above - you're getting the wrong agents if you're suffering these length of wait times. Experienced PMCO agents, and a small portion of the PMUA workforce will not have the issues that some people refer to here. It's really that simple.

channa

There are a few reasons for that:

1. CO was a smaller airline, with fewer customers, and fewer data points.

2. CO customers were accustomed to the slower level of service. There weren't many data points from Elites on multiple carriers who had several experiences on multiple carriers and could compare handling times for issues.

3. The CO board used to be a very hostile environment which prevented criticism from being posted. Anybody who posted anything critical of the airline was quickly attacked, which created a hostile environment, and discouraged potential posters from raising critical concerns.


We have seen PMCO agents take ridiculous amounts of time to perform transactions. The main difference there is that they're not phased by the lengthy transaction time, while the PMUA agent gets frustrated.

I think the notion of it being a "new" system where agents need more training is ludicrous. It's a difficult-to-use, unintuitive system that is very manpower-oriented.

We just need to look so far as the staffing levels at the airport, where PMCO had a minimum of 2 agents per flight, while PMUA often had 1 or 1.5. Of course the CO spin machine will call that "better customer service," but we all know that's a function of the additional workload put on the GAs.


This is not a simple seat assignment. This is a seat assignment across two flights marketed as one. This has historically been challenging with SHARES, so much so, that UA has already announced they will no longer be marketing int'l flights in this manner unless required by law. One of the reasons cited for this change was specifically seating issues with SHARES on these types of flights.

star_world

These tired old points just don't hold water with people experienced with your obfuscation tactics.

I am an experienced traveller. Dozens of my colleagues are in the same boat. Plenty of experience on a vast range of airlines. CO simply did not stand out as particularly "slow" at anything. The main voice in this forum that tried to make the claim for the past 5-6 years that CO was abnormally slow at straightforward tasks was you. You're in the minority, to say the least.

Yes, CO was a marginally smaller airline than UA. That marginally reduces the number of data points, but I'd be fascinated to understand how that can make a substantial difference to the conclusion.

More obfuscation. The fundamental issue here is not PMUA agents getting frustrated and taking forever as a result. The fundamental issue is that they frequently just don't know what they are doing. More training is needed.

So you say. Your position is as much spin as United's (note: not CO). The truth - as usual - is somewhere in the middle.

You link this with "so much so" - is there any evidence that one has anything to do with the other? These exact types of flights operated in fairly substantial numbers for years under CO - why has this issue come to a head now? There were no substantial difficulties in selecting seats on these types of flights discussed here in the past - maybe someone with actual knowledge on the subject can comment rather than someone trying to further their agenda?

channa

Plenty of people have comment on poor and slow IRROPS handling by CO prior to the merger.

CO management has even acknowledged that the IRROPS experience on CO was sub-par, and they had been working on it as one of their corporate priorities until the merger dominated things.


Fewer data points, combined with the intimidation culture that was prevalent on the CO could certainly do it.



Your point would hold water if you could demonstrate that the PMUA agents are markedly slower than their PMCO counterparts. IME, there is no noticeable difference in the handling time for issues between both sets of agents.

In the past four months, I've had PMCO agents not know commands, huddle with their co-workers, call the Helpdesk, and blow me off and tell me things that are possible are not possible.


Selecting seats on direct flights with CO was a problem as well. We now have a larger set of such flights with the larger route network, plus a customer base half of which has better expectations for how these flights are handled.

Thunderroad

First of all, please tone down the accusations of obfuscation, spin and agendas.

Second, many of us were delighted when we first got word of the CO-UA merger. We were not looking to pick a fight, attack the new management, etc. It's only when we discovered what that new management was doing, in terms of SHARES and its more general approach to IT and customer service, that we soured on the folks running the show. That channa was prescient in analyzing CO and what was in store for UA post-merger should be a focus of praise, not criticism.

Third, in just one day or so in just one thread there are five people (quoted above) posting about experiencing great frustration with SHARES, a couple of them disputing your picture of a ten-minute solution to booking problems - and that's not even including channa's astute analyses in response to your dismissive assertions.

If you want to simply blame the victim - as in the UA personnel who have to cope with this system and whom you allege simply need better training - that's your prerogative. But the dozens of other threads and hundreds of other FTers reporting problems, often before or independently of having any dealings with those supposedly ill-trained UA personnel, tell many different stories. Those stories indicate that in some cases UA personnel could benefit from more training, but also indicate problems plaguing SHARES as it seems incapable of adapting to more complicated reservation needs and a more far-flung and complicated route network.

If you want to ignore those posts in deference to your being an experienced traveler (unlike the rest of us ) and your undocumented "dozens of colleagues", feel free. I won't accuse you of having your own agenda. But I will grant a lot more credence to channa, who analyzed these problems before most of us became aware of them and has continued to provide many astute, balanced insights as the SHARES mess has unfolded. I'll also grant considerable credence to the wide variety of FTers who've reported SHARES (and other) problems that transcend poor training of UA personnel.

The bottom line is that SHARES is a mess, that poor training is but one small part of that mess, that what worked inadequately for CO is proving far more inadequate for a larger and more complicated airline, and that trying to reduce these problems to poor training lets management off the hook for its own manifold inadequacies (including but by no means limited to that poor training). As a somewhat experienced traveler myself, let me assure you that pre-merger UA and current AA surpass the sorry state of UA today for many more reasons than can be addressed by more training.

ibuyyoufly

I support channa and Thunderroad. I know what world I'm living in and with no favoritism or prejudice. It's not Rocket Science and this is screwed up. pmCO IT and HP folks have had their 15 minutes of fame and they've failed. Time for them to go.

Thunderroad

Thanks, ibuy. I hadn't realized that HP was involved with SHARES and/or UA's other systems.

NY-FLA

Independent data point, if I may. Mrs. NY-FLA is a frequent early morning SYR-DCA-MCO pax on USAIR. Yes, the same US that has had SHARES since the HP merger, approx. 7 years. We no longer book the SYR-MCO routing that flies both legs under the same flight number. Why would one not take the flight that now (finally) offers FC on an RJ, uses the same equipment straight through, gets there earlier, and is almost always slightly cheaper? Well, SHARES cannot process an upgrade on this type of itinerary. Sometimes a particularly "good" US ticket agent at SYR could process the first leg of the upgrade morning of flight, but obviously "at the airport" means long after all other elite levels have been processed, and getting upgraded on the second leg took the GA at DCA to perform numerous overrides if any availability did remain.
Seems to me these circumstances clearly point to a major SHARES shortcoming more than training or any other excuse that we are seeing offerred up in here.

SkiAdcock

Well said Thunderroad.

Cheers.

ibuyyoufly

Hewlett Packard is where the SHARES system resides. It's my understanding that it's them, and only them, who has hands on the system to "fix" any problems that arise. I think we can see how thats working.

So if just "fixing" is a problem, I can only imagine how far down the line "new features/improvements" might be. I'll be in an Assisted Living facility by then.

But as I've said in other posts, why someone would choose a system that requires not only non-airline people to maintain the system, but also not your own company people, is very baffling. To me that sounds like a recipe for disaster and it seems to be playing out that way.

escapefromphl

Don't ever try to correct a misspelled name; that took me about 5 calls and 3 hours to correct. They had to re-issue the ticket.

Thunderroad

Thanks for this info. But as long as this SHARES-oriented thread is going strong, let me ask a couple of questions as both a devil's advocate and as someone who's relatively ignorant about this stuff:

1. I thought that a rationale for SHARES was that CO and thus the merged UA either owned its version of the system or at least had more control over it than pre-merger UA had over its reservation system, and thus was saving a lot of money by not having to pay an outside organization for the service. So why the dependence, then, on HP? Or really, what am I missing here?
2. I've seen occasional references to AA and US using SHARES. Now, as with NY-FLA's data point above, the system still has definite shortcomings. But those two airlines have been able to pretty much make it work. So might UA eventually bring it up to the same speed as AA and US, which would seem to be perfectly adequate?

halls120

At least one pmUA CSR who posts here regularly - and who is a generally "positive" poster - has repeatedly stated that processing transactions on SHARES is slower, and that he can no longer do things he was able to do on the pmUA system. I guess his hands-on daily experience doesn't count.