Originally Posted by
david_oz
I am also seeing the new rules in action, and they suck. There should be several SDC options to get me home to YYC a bit earlier with some W availability, but the app is not allowing me to change to any flight. Perhaps this is because I am confirmed in PZ on the IAH-ORD leg, but either way it’s a bit frustrating. The irony is that my IAH-ORD flight appears to be overbooked, so I may be able to swap to one of the flights I would have taken for free with VDB compensation. Fingers crossed.
This is now the new behavior. You can no longer SDC the IAH-YYZ segment to anything other than another non-stop IAH-YYZ segment on the *same day* via the app. You can still call United and have them make the change for you and they'll do it. The difference is that when you do it through the app you can only SDC to your booked fare class (PZ in this case) while if you do it via the phone they will put you back in your original economy class (W in this case). It's a trade off.
Maybe you got bumped on IAH-ORD but most likely not. UA has been giving the "we're oversold" message on the mobile app much more frequently than in the past and almost always they don't take volunteers. Plus hub-to-hub flights have a high number of misconnects and last minute SDC off the flights to non-stops.
-RM