Houston Infinite Platinum

Had my first flavor of UA hardware this week. All I can say is I hope that we can still enjoy a very young fleet with seat and overhead configurations made by the old Continental team. On both flights the UA flight attendants apologized for the lack of overhead space. The "first class" seats on the 767 and 757 I flew took me back 10 years from a comfort standpoint. The old useless air phones were still there and there was no place to put your feet, as there were electronic boxes below each seat.

I also hope we don't get a bunch of snarky reservation folks. I had two dealing with CAL reservations this week and I got the we really don't care and the you must have screwed up your reservation comments. In one case for no reason they split a reservation for my family into 3 reservations. I asked why and was told, "It was what you did, it has nothing to do with our system". EXCUSE ME, but all I did was check in and then when I went to print I could not find my wife's reservation. My daughters was in the original number and mine was a different one and my wife's was a third one.

PLEASE GOD DON'T SCREW UP WHAT WAS A GREAT CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND AIRLINE!!!!

jhayes_1780

So you don't like PMUA's hard product (could be a reasonable debate).

But didn't like your interaction with PMCO's res staff

Houston Infinite Platinum

Fair comment. I would be glad to have an open discussion on Hardware, except for International. Most of us fly in the U.S., and I was told that UA has some nice International configurations.

On the reservations, I know it was CAL, but when I stopped flying UA 20 year ago and gave them back 50k in miles (Yes that might be foolish but my experiences were incredibly bad), the overall attitude was we don't care. My hope is that this that old experience and an airline that has had the recent financial history, my start permeating what was a good experience before. I know I may be reaching!

aacharya

Are you sure concerning the reservations that they weren't split at check-in, since you're elite?

UA-NYC

Many of us feel the same way about the CO F seats, given the 90 degree angle they start at and lack of any headrest flexibility.

If you had a 767, that is called the Ghetto Bird for a reason - most narrow F seats in the fleet and tiny overheads (good thing there's only a few of them flying). 757 has the exact same overhead storage as the CO 757.

Take your underseat storage out after liftoff and there's plenty of underseat legroom.

Houston Infinite Platinum

I guess to each their own, but I am 6'4'' and done have a headrest problem on CO. The UA ones are required to be down at takeoff and they hit my shoulder blades. As far as under seat room. I never put anything there to start. I was amazed that both planes had large boxes, presumably for electronics, maybe the phones, under the seats.

SeattleFlyerGuy

We obviously have different perceptions of "great". I prefer UA to CO and ESPECIALLY when it comes to customer care. At CO, I feel like they treat me like stupid dirt. I've had far more trouble with them than UA.

SeattleFlyerGuy

That's the feeling that I get from CO most of the time. There's a snowstorm shutting down FRA and you'd like a reroute to get home? CO reservations is simply not accepting calls right now, call later. Finally get through after an hour of on hold? Call LH, we can't do anything. Buy a ticket on CO.com, but then never have the reservation ticketed? You never had a ticket with us, so we don't know why you are so mad that we didn't issue the ticket like we said we would after we authorized your card. There was no card on file!

Yuck.

J.Edward

A few years ago I branched out to UA (back in the day when CO was in SkyTeam...<shudder>) and like you I was at first disappointed by the hard product offered.

While I'm not 6'4" (~6'1"), I too had an issue with that #@$ headrest, especially on takeoff as it would always jab me in an awkward way. The trick I found was to leave it down but angle it forward so it would provide support for my upper back/lower neck for takeoff and landing, and then as soon as the wheels lifted off the runway I put it up.

The tradeoff I also found with the headrest is that when it's up, I've found it easier to sleep with - especially if I've got a pillow that's escaped Jeff's cost-custting-clever-o-doom.

Anyways next time you're on a UA flight, try fiddling with the tilt (not the height adjustment) and you might find a better position for the headrest.

Beyond headrest issues, the best seats IMHO are the old CO FC ones -- man, those are/were great! Liked how the seat fit my back (which granted is a personal issue), liked the little spot to store stuff in the center armrest (UA sorely lacks a similar space), and I like the fact the drink tray extension in the center armrest goes forward vis-a-vis to the side on UA, so you can use it and your tray table at the same time.

Shame they dropped that seat as the new one they're putting on the 739ERs just does not do it for me.

radonc1

I agree with UA-NYC that the new CO F seat is a very uncomfortable seat, and I agree with J.Edward that the old CO F seat is the best of the bunch. However, no matter what seat, the F seat on either UA or CO beats the pants off the Y seat, although E+ with an open middle seat isn't bad. And I would still take the ghetto bird's F seat over one in the back.
I will agree that UA needs better IFE but the downside to that will be loss of Ch 9. I really like Ch 9 when it is functional and I doubt it will survive the upgrade to pay TV (in the back). However, technology is advancing so fast now that who knows what entertainment will be available when UA gets around to upgrading the IFE on their fleet of planes.

channa

In order to get on an airport upgrade list you have to be split off the record.

Not sure how the others were split off unless that's what it does, or maybe one or more of them have Elite status as well.

boettger1

Shouldn't the CS agent know this? And regardless, it doesn't explain his/her treatment of the OP.

channa

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2.2; en-us; MB612 Build/KRNS-X4-1.1.5) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

Why would phone agents know the nuances of airport procedures?

channa

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2.2; en-us; MB612 Build/KRNS-X4-1.1.5) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

Why would phone agents know the nuances of airport procedures?

jlemon

I flew on UA for the first time in many years recently. Roundtrip routing was MSY-LAX nonstop. Normally, I fly out of LFT; however, I saved $400+ by departing from MSY instead. I've been flying on CO since the early 70's and also flew on UA many times back when I lived in California.

Folks, this was an enjoyable trip. I was in Economy Plus MSY-LAX on an A319. My first time in Economy Plus and the extra legroom made all the difference in the world. The FAs were great and even comped me a cocktail when they ran out of my preferred beverage. And it was really great to hear Ch. 9 again!

Heading back east LAX-MSY, I was in F on an A320 after spending some time in the RCC. The cabin service and lunch were fine. No Ch. 9 on this flight (my UA Capt. buddy tells me lots of the UA pilots turn it off these days) but we did arrive 15 minutes early at MSY.

Great job by UA!