It's interesting that people are reporting all sorts of problems with UR. I've called them a couple of times to make hotel reservations since the changeover, and both times I've asked them to just charge my card for the full amount and leave my points as is. In both cases, the agent told me my reservation would be entirely charged to my card, confirmed with me the amount to be charged - and both times, they ended up doing a cash/points combo.
It wasn't really a big deal, as the amount of points I had in my account on both occasions wasn't large. But it still seems like this shouldn't be a difficult request, and the fact that they screwed it up on two separate occasions is a bit ridiculous.
I haven't used them to book flights, however - and the comments I'm reading in this thread make me very nervous about doing that.