Daniel-SYD

Add me to the list of very disappointed people. EF had been a great tool that I think reduced a lot of mundane calls to UA and kept me much more organized and time efficient ...

UA Insider

Hi everyone,

We recognize the importance and value to you of accessible and transparent information about United flights. It’s a meaningful part of your travel planning, and we are committed to providing useful information that is both accurate and preserves the integrity of United’s data and systems.

While we are committed to data transparency, Expert Flyer has been accessing united.com in an unauthorized fashion to retrieve UA availability. In addition, these activities have consumed significant united.com bandwidth that could otherwise be used by regular consumers. As a result, we had to take this action to protect the security and integrity of United’s systems.

Thank you for your understanding as to why we had to take this action. We continue to look at ways in which we can provide you with timely and useful information (some of which you will see in new releases of our own digital channels) as well as with partners that have authorized access to our data.

Aaron Goldberg
Sr. Manager - Customer Experience Planning
United Airlines

zombietooth

I absolutely do not believe that UA's new PQD req's are "intended" to increase benefits. I do believe, however, that the winnowing of the herd, as a natural result of the 10K PQD, will indeed have that effect.

It is obvious that UA wants to give out fewer GPUs, which do cost them significantly, to improve their margins on J inventory.

unhappyflyer

They must be using the same IT people that built Healthcare.gov if this is the reason. Probably the lamest thing I've ever read here.

Darlox

Aaron, while I appreciate you providing us with a response to this, with due respect, this seems like a foolhardy decision on the part of someone, internally. What you have literally just said is that your CS Agents' time, and the time of your customers, is less valuable than your bandwidth.

I would welcome UA replacing EF with something as good or better. Shutting down a useful tool over "too many queries", with nothing to replace it, should be an indication that UA is doing something wrong in leaving a popular need un-met. The day when bandwidth and server capacity is more expensive than human capital is a very sad day, indeed.

nova08

Thank you for the clarification. Though can we expect that R/RN, other upgrade buckets will still be available via UA.com (Expertmode or as you mention other UA channels)?

LaserSailor

Well, a number of people here can either

-apologise

Or

- spin off a new conspiracy theory

I've already doubled down on one of these.

LordByran

Just another frustrating change in a long string of 'em.

keepssmile

Thanks for illustrating your (un)friendly skies.

greg99

Can you tell us whether or not EF or other 3rd party providers will be given access to an API or similar protocol to provide access to this information?

Frankly, UA has made extensive recent changes to its policies and products (including access to information about seat availability) that are undeniably not to the benefit of the frequent flying public. Additionally, the change was made without (a) notice to passengers or (b) access to an alternative or even concrete information as to how and when such an alternative would be made available.

Please forgive us then, when I and many of us here will tell you that we don't believe you. I do hope to be proven wrong.

Greg

eagle007

Can't imagine this is REALLY about bandwidth...

pete4212

What is this 1995? Servers and bandwidth are the cheapest resources you have available to you. Since your consumers are using ExpertFlyer instead of going to United.com directly for searches, there was no loss of "bandwidth", the search was going to happen regardless, via EF or not. EF also never asked us for a password to login to United.com, so maybe you're confusing them with the websites that login as their users to get point/mile balances. It would be nice if you gave us a non boiler plate answer.

Great, then make EF an authorized partner and give them a "proper" way of getting the data. You clearly understand that your elites want this data and that they are willing to pay EF for it because UA.com isn't cutting it, if you ignore us now, you're just showing that you don't care. At the end of the day, you want your elites to be happy elites.

FlyWorld

Tone deaf, and ignores the issues that cause us to need EF.

That aside, why don't you authorize EF to get the data through an approved method?

UA Insider

Expert mode/visibility in UA channels is unaffected by this.

LAXOGG

Agreed. You can make assumptions like I have and calculate the number of estimated queries. Unless there are a couple of hamsters supporting the system, there could not be any significant impact from EF activities as I run the numbers.

^ Good News