Originally Posted by
jsloan
There are two ways to look at this. The cynical approach is that UA is trying to drive third parties out of the business and interact with their customers directly. The less-cynical approach is that UA hasn't figure out how to allow travel agents to generate the new form of future flight credit that UA has been issuing, and that the old approach -- generating an electronic travel credit for fare differences -- was too close to a refund.
It's also probably that the old method of processing travel agent residuals via MCOs was very expensive for United (to the tune of several dollars per transaction), which becomes a much bigger deal when they aren't collecting a $200+ change fee each time one is issued.