WineCountryUA

Received via email ealier today from UA, "Important information regarding your flight status notification settings"

In essence
1) the only available automatic flight status now is 2 hours prior to departure, instead of the previous - 1,2,3 hr options. I preferred 3 hours for a couple personal reasons. No choice now????

2) I preferred e-mail and/or phone call notifications, now
. While I understand it may be less costly to do "SMS", removing other options is a decrease in service IMO.

and of course the obligatory, these decreases in service is a benefit statement.

DawgmanOH

I am taking absolutely nothing away from your ability to find it useful. Ever since the mobile app came out, I have had no reason to use flight notification. I find tracking the flight on the mobile app much more reliable and I can do it ANY time I want, not just 1, 2 or 3 hours ahead of time.

Again, definitely understand if you find it important but I personally don't see this as anything that will affect me.

1k-all-the-way

At least you get the notice. I get zero emails from United. Lots from other airlines I fly less.....

WineCountryUA

I find the automatic notification useful -- preventing me from forgetting to leave with enough time to make the flight.

Yes I use the mobile app to get on-demand status but mobile does nothing as a reminder.

JBord

Exactly what I was thinking. Except for the ones trying to get me to add a car, hotel, or E+ to my trip.

I only get the text messages some of the time, although it seems to be better lately. I just checked and my flight reminder text yesterday came 2 hours before so apparently it's changed.

airchick

I didn't receive this email notification you mention, but I find flight notification very useful and use the 3-hour notification as well.

EDIT: I receive my notifications via text, not email.

channa

The flight notification system has been useless since they moved to CO's systems.

I can recall times being at the gate area, with old UA, and everyone's phones would go off on a delay, sometimes a few seconds before the airport monitors and gate displays updated.

But CO's systems barely send the notification, and if they do, it's often late.

I was talking to a CS rep about it, and they were throwing some numbers around how the old CO system was 20% reliable at getting notifications out, and they changed something and now it's 80% reliable. Thing is, this stuff needs to be closer to 100% reliable, otherwise if it doesn't work when you need it, it's useless.

drowelf

Agree 100% that this is a massive downgrade in service. I preferred the emails for notifications as I can read the entire thing on my BB, quite often the SMS messages to my personal cell get truncated since the messages they send are > than the 160 SMS limit. Sometimes my carrier (Verizon) splits these properly and I get both parts, but most often I only get the first 160 characters, which often lack the actual information about the delay.

The real kicker here is that while you can put in an email address for notifications, but it now gets ignored.

I can't see how this can be cheaper as the SMS # for my Cell Phone, is an email address itself.

Not happy with this at all. I had a long call with Web Support a couple of weeks ago on it and basically got told 'tough live with it, thats the way it is now'

While the mobile apps is good, getting notifications, especially about delays needs to be a push service. I'm not constantly updating status via it when I'm already at the airport. I want United to notify me about delays, not me just finding out cause I initiated an update request.

If I was not hub captive at IAH I'd seriously be considering jumping ship to AA, but then I'd be connecting via DFW all the time and thats almost as back as ORD in the summer.

FTstudent

Strange enough, the Blackberry Travel app is excellent. I generally get the delay notifications before the gate monitors update or notifications from UA. If there's an update from UA at all. I really don't know how they do it.
In real life I'm the only person left with a Blackberry, except when I'm in the world of UA. Half of F has a BB and the UC is full of them, so this shouldn't be too embarrassing of an admission on here

tyroner

Funnily enough, since I got to 1k for the first time last the year I haven't been getting notifications at all by phone. I used to get calls telling me of cancellations - no more. Checked my account and no issues. Seems like my account has entered the Bermuda Triangle of notifications.

riphamilton

i got rid of my BB in 2011 (i believe).... but i got to use BB travel for a few months before the switch. it was a fantastic app! google is just catching up now with google now's capabilities.

Phil Level

Funny, I had thought about posting this in early May, but figured it had already been discussed on FT... and I just missed the thread.

After a trip LAX-SFO, and the return SFO-LAX, I realized I hadn't received any of the TXTs or emails I had been getting. When I went into my profile, I discovered all those setting had been reset to no notification (I suppose the default). I had to turn them all back on again. My next flight is this weekend.

username

Another good thing with e-mail is there is a trail of what happens in the event of cascading delays. SMS is not as good for that purpose.

You would think it costs them more to send SMS than e-mail....

I too notice usually TripCase is faster than both the United App and SMS/e-mail. 3 hours before departure is the ideal time as it give you time to prepare and head to the airport.

Flying Machine

You don't stand alone. I use the BB Travel App and it has been quite useful. I tried to update my settings yesterday on UA, will spend some more time ovver the weekend to understand their new platform.

halls120

Same here - the e-mail sent out 3 hours in advance was an excellent reminder that I need to stop working and head out to Dulles. 2 hours notice is fine for DCA, but useless if I'm flying out of IAD.

to this change, another downgrade to service.