Originally Posted by Tunapalooza

Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

There's a difference between acknowledging the technical challenge of an integration and successfully addressing the challenge. In a customer service business, success means providing good service. Perfection is not the standard and I think that most everyone expected to encounter some bugs. But the widespread loss of seat assignments on international itineraries is not an understandable "bug."

Compounding this failure is United's inability to address these unforced errors. As for my own buggered-up TATL itinerary, the website lacked functionality to correct the misassignments. It simply would not let me select seats. Nor was the phone line of any more use. I was on hold for over 2 1/2 hours last night before giving up. Finally, I was able to reach a CSR this morning. He was helpful, but could not restore my original seat assignments. Nevertheless, I have acceptable seats. At last. However, these seat assignments are not reflected in the online seat map, so I have my doubts that this matter is resolved.

How much aggravation and lost time among its elite customers is acceptable to United? I would hope the answer is "close to zero." By that standard, the integration has been a failure. Speaking for myself, I am more frustrated in the difficulty in correcting the problem than the problem itself.

Marc