Originally Posted by
Lifetimenotelite
logistically United created a mess for me with their IT issue[...]
Little more real when explain the whole story, eh?
I don't want to make this overly personal, but I would argue if you had a single ticket pated on any IATA-member airline -- UA, SQ, AA, JL, LH, AC. AS, .... -- the mess would have been sorted with minimal effort on your part. This is the risk any of us take when choosing to string together with individual tickets in the form of a "do it yourself connection" -- for whatever reasons (usually: save a few $) -- and the tradeoff is when something goes wrong the passenger is left with a mess to clean up rather than the airline. Similar to purchasing travel insurance or not, it's a risk you voluntarily assume and I'm not sure how this even comes close to "UA is going to kill someone soon" The mess could have also been avoided by allowing more time between standalone tickets, etc.
The reason for the trip is noble but that doesn't change UA's lack of responsibility for accomplishing anything more than get you from the place your ticket
with them shows as the beginning to the place your ticket
with them shows as the end.
Originally Posted by
PA815
Reading your post, one would think they have IT issues all the time and the CEO just throws up his hands and says “well what do you want from us?”
[...]
I’m not sure where you get that UA tolerates this or that they do nothing to invest in IT. Most of us who use the airline regularly do not have that impression at all.
Especially when the reporting is that UA already has a project underway to replace the system in question. It's not even the Southwest crew scheduling meltdown of a few years ago where they said "oh shoot", slapped another piece of duct tape on it and said "we're back, but maybe we should start to think about maybe replacing that". And the total impact to UA's operation seemed to be less than 24 hours -- with only a few flights affected after the first several hours.
Originally Posted by
NorthAmerica
The app is not amazing, especially in these situations. It rarley shows many of the options that are actually available for rebooking and I have to try my luck with a grumpy United Club agent who is sometimes willing to be bothered. IAH, SFO, and EWR are particularly unhelpful. People without a United Club membership don't even have that option and can get stuck for days with the options the app offers.
The app also fails to actually update delays until the last minute or after the actual delay has obvisouly occurred. It is so obvious when the arriving flight is coming in late that my departure will be delayed, but the app waits until boarding should have started to delay the flight. The app doesn't let me stanby for earlier flights as well. The app has rarely been a good rebooking option when there is a flight problem.
It is gross how employees have treated paying passengers dduring this IT meltdown and shows a lack of care by United that perminates on a good day. At least at Delta, with their many faults as well, have options in their hubs to speak to people at agent assist.
If my have its flaws -- and some of them are more input side (e.g. delays are only updated when operations enters them -- that holds true for the app, .com, in-airport displays, the phone, GDS FLIFO ...) but the United app's utility compared to American, Lufthansa, or Air New Zealand (the only other airline apps I've had reason to use in the past year) it is head and shoulders above the rest as far as transparency and utility (AA doesn't even let you see seat maps most of the time!)
Originally Posted by
N1003U
Wait a minute…UA was issuing $20 vouchers at EWR, while those of us similarly impacted at DEN only got $15 vouchers!? I _demand_ compensation!…
The primary driver of meal voucher value is passenger status, IIRC $20 is typical 1K/GS, $15 for everyone else (except maybe a few who wind up with $10). I remember being at the ORD McDonalds last year and the manager first tried to tell me I couldn't order anything more than $15 and then tried shoving cookies at me to get to the $20 when he saw the value. There have been a few times where I've wound up with 2x or 3x $20 issued simultaneously -- I've not exactly put a finger on it but guessing that's a length of delay multiplier.