Originally Posted by nwflyboy

Maybe, but I'm not so sure it's really just simple incompetence. If what I think I'm seeing is reality (what appears to be lots of phantom inventory consistently showing as wide open, on an ongoing basis), I'd describe it as willful ignorance rather than simple incompetence.



How about if united.com routinely shows plenfiful award inventory which is always invalid? Shouldn't that be fixed? And I do not think this is an issue that's just occurred in the past. I see plenty of contemporary (or fairly recent) indications that phantom inventory is just business as usual in several of the united threads (eg LOT Polish and Aer Lingus) - in those threads, once people figure out what's happened, they just seem to be resigned to the fact that seeing lots of phantom award availability is the way things are, so just move on and don't bother. If that is indeed the case (and I can't say for sure that it is, as I have not tested with dummy bookings), then I'd say that is more than just incompetence on the part of the airline; if that's just the way things have been for ages and nothing's being done to correct it, I'd say that's willful ignorance (I'd note that not fixing such issues provides financial benefits to United).

I guess the thing that bugs me most is that "we" have no sense of the scale of this. What percentage of the award inventory that united.com shows as available is actually not bookable because of this issue? I dunno, it could be a very small number. But veterans of the program know about it generally, it's nothing new, it's not some rare glitch. If you put together all the stories from all the separate threads on booking awards on different partners (and encouraged everyone to self-report when they ran into it), "we" all would get a better idea of the scale of it. If it's as widespread as I suspect, it would be something that should be brought to United's attention (just as last winter's issues with TG and other partners had to be raised before United publicly acknowledged that the issue was real, and eventually took steps to fix it).

Now, I do understand very well that United management has made their loyalty program a low priority (I'm trying to be nice). Still, if it turns out that phantom inventory really is a much bigger thing than many folks realize, that should be publicized and pressure (such as it can be) should be applied to United to work towards fixing it. Just having people give up in disgust after trying and failing to book a flight that United presents as available is no way to run a business, and it sucks as a consumer. At the very least, I'd like to get some sense of the scale of the issue, so we can warn people that partner X really is impossible to use so don't bother trying, and one could make a rational choice about to what extent (if any) it's worth bringing it to United's attention. They may have no idea of it's scale and impact on customers. Seems like something that both we, as MileagePlus members, and also the company, would both benefit from understanding better....no?