Myself and my other half are flying to Spain tomorrow via EWR and BRU, last leg on Air Brussels. We are on separate PNRs.

We received emails prompting us to check-in online. Since she has not flown internationally since January, I thought the doc check issue might crop up and indeed it did. Because of this issue, I decided to try checking her in first and see how it would go. The website began the process and on the second or third page it asked for all of her passport details (which are already stored in her profile and have been for about a year). I dutifully typed all of it in. It eventually spat out the "this is not a boarding pass" page, which by the way has no button to take anywhere beyond it. While I was fuming over this waste of time on a very busy morning, she received a robocall from UA telling her to check-in online.

Neither of us have seat assignments for the Air Brussels leg, and I was unable to get seat assignments at least as far as the process went. I love it when an online process tells you to "see an agent."

If United does not intend to let someone check-in online, they ought not to be pushing customers to do so.