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.