JDS747

1. Completely agree with you here.

2. This is highly route dependent. UA does release upgrade space (R) and P space early on some routes. For example: In January I booked P fares for flights in September. At the same time I booked confirmed upgrade space for flights in September. In March I booked confirmed upgraded flights to HKG and back for flights in May. In December I booked confirmed upgraded flights to BKK and back via HKG for flights in March, so the space is out there!

3. Not sure I agree with this as it is somewhat already being done via CC spend.

4. They are working on this so I expect to see improvement. I don't think your reference to Qantas really works though. There are almost as many people in the greater NY area as there are in the whole country of AU. Most of the UA clubs outside the US were they are mainly serving premium pax (F and Biz) are similar to the competition. HKG and GRU come to mind. The new club at LHR looks to be very nice as well but obviously haven't been so can't comment more than the pictures from the press release.

I also completely agree with empowering people at the local level to resolve customer issues. It seems UA is trying to centralize this in order to have better control and pick who gets what, but employees should have additional tools to work with when a simple issue arises. I believe the tools are there, because I've seen them used for me before, so I hope the real issue is training. People just don't know what they can or can't do.