Originally Posted by greenpau

So I learned a lot this week when trying to change a ticket. On my original paid J round trip, I had opened up a companion Saver Biz/IN seat in one direction. I subsequently needed to change the outbound due to work commitments, and the agent (after putting me on hold forever) came back and told me she couldn’t change my companion without charging an additional 100,000 miles for the segment, because “the rules clearly state only one exception is to be granted for the LIFETIME of the PNR - you already had one exception for the original outbound flight, and that’s it”. She was reading from a Reservation Agent intranet platform called Wingtips, and told me that they had recently been force trained on the GS “Exception Rules” and parameters.

She refused to make the change without the add collect of miles, and I tried a HUACA. Next agent said that the prior agent had added lots of remarks to the reservation record, and entered a warning to other agents saying she has “clearly advised the member of the exception rules”. The next agent said that the rules are indeed confusing, but because she had changed my ticket and now I could not be changed back to the original flight, she would go ahead and change my companion with no add collect.

Ultimately, the one exception for the life of the PNR was another new one to me. It makes little sense when they tell you that you must fly with the companion to which the exception was granted, then introduce this. They are clearly cracking down further on rules, are encouraging agents to be strict, and some agents are taking great joy at being sticklers.

GS as a program is in an interesting spot. The ground service has really shifted in quality. IRROPS handling has become almost non-existent. Sometimes there is a smiling agent at the gate, but if it’s delayed longer than 10 minutes they head off to their next assignment and leave you with a rolling delay. Reservations Line is usually good, but they are much less flexible and helpful than in the past. The exception rules are getting so tight to the point of being both confusing and not as useful. 1K also gets pre-board and meal choice, and shortly that will be irrelevant with pre-order being rolled out to all flights. I’m 25% success rate this year in sponsoring others for upgrades with PP.

Big question is whether it’s still worth the dollar stretch / UA metal loyalty versus using a mix of UA and other carriers when almost all my travel is paid F/J anyway - against a backdrop of much higher fares and mediocre service. The value equation seems less obvious at the moment.