Similar thing happened to me this week. I was in 2F and the FA came by to take meal orders front to back in seat pairs, the guy next to me spoke up first and then she said "Now I only have the other choice available". Front to back, no GS first (unless there just happened to be no GS pax on the flight). I was OK with the meal (though I would have picked the other one if available) but it really irritated me that they are doing it this way with no respect for their customers' loyalty, when they're so thinly loaded they can run out of choices in the second row! I mean they always made such a big deal out of whether or not agents greeted you by your name! What the heck good is that kind of recognition if it doesn't translate into practical benefits like a meal choice? Come on!

However this was a flight out of EWR (i.e. CO); is it possible that PMCO FAs are just still doing it the stupid old PMCO way, or do we have actual confirmation (as opposed to speculation with a high probability of correctness) that having our status ignored on board is now COdbaUA policy going forward?

I've been selecting seats towards the front of the F cabin on this basis since 3/3, but I really prefer to sit further back. And clearly even row 2 can't guarantee you a choice!

ObOnTopic: the thousands of lifetime miles that were arbitrarily subtracted from my lifetime history on 3/26 still haven't come back. Has anyone else in this predicament had any luck recovering theirs?

It's a new policy. Two weeks ago I was on a PMUA 319 PHL-LAX with a long time PMUA FA and not only was it front to back but when I talked about the merger with her she labeled it as a downgrade for the 1Ks.

As a PMCO guy I wouldn't mind meals by status but since there now seems to be a ton of 1Ks I also wouldn't mind some type of rotation like AA does.

Over years as a PMUA 1K I never missed out on my first meal choice. Not once. Maybe I just have ordinary tastes that match up well with the meal loading ratios. But otherwise, the large number of UA 1Ks didn't seem to make things difficult for one another, even in years with big DEQM promotions etc.

Time to go push all my existing reservations' seat assignments forward I guess, and maybe learn to appreciate the bulkheads...

The best way to please an FA these days in F is the "give me whatever is left" line; OK, short of handing tootsie pops, perhaps?

And I always sit in bulkheads, I don't like seats reclining into me especially if I want to watch a movie on my laptop ...

Which is what I do as well as I'll give my first choice when asked but will always say "if someone really wants what I'm having, I'll take what's left"

This evening I finally received a response (several weeks late, though not entirely their fault, I had some issues with a spam filter the first time they responded) from 1kvoice. It was in regards to my complaint of significant website outages (There were several days in late April when I could not access UA.com for 6+ hours) and late posting flights (Yes they finally posted and they weren't nearly as late as many of you have experienced).

Their response....Sorry, thanks for being 1K, have a great day. Why I expected anything more is beyond me.

Your issues were fixed? I understand if you are complaining in that you wanted the problems brought to management attention (which, from what you wrote, happened), but were you also expecting compensation?

+1 -- I was on two PMUA flights back to back on Monday with the same crew in 1st. The first meal order was taken front to back. The second was in a U shaped way (started on the left side 1st row and went all the way back ONLY on the left side -- then right side last row and all the way to the front). I was sitting on the 1st row right side (i.e. last) but I was tired so I didn't say anything.

I just wish they did it all consistently.

The best way to please an FA these days in F is the "give me whatever is left" line; OK, short of handing tootsie pops, perhaps?

I always pick up some shortbread cookies from the United Club before I board and give them to the FA in exchange for my diet coke couple that with a thank you and a smile and you made the FAs day a little brighter.

Wait - how come I don't know this trick? Really? The shortbread cookies are gonna do it???

^^^^^

"That's just nuts - arbitrarily annoy your better customers for no gain to the airline?"

THANK YOU for this entire post. THANKS! Ugh. I couldn't agree more ^

I used an RPU the other day less than 5 hours before departure with 17 (!!) people waitlisted for F. Did I feel bad? Yes. But did I even check where I would be on the list? No. I just grabbed the seat, cuz even though I SHOULD have been really high up, I knew that other people would prly grab the R seats and that would have been it...
Kinda sad.

I wasn't so much annoyed with the mileage posting as I was with the downtime. I'm not talking 10 minutes here and there, I'm talking several hours a day during prime business hours spanning at least a week. I received error messages with most essential functionality (Flight search, flight status, Account Login all did not work). And this was all leading up to an International trip in which a GPU still hadn't cleared. This was not a complete outage of the system as other FTers had no issue during the these times and I was never informed of an outage of this nature during business hours. As far as I'm concerned they probably have no idea why I experienced the outage. They got to my email 2 weeks late and its doubtful they went back to determine why it was down and ensure other customers do not experience similar outages unless absolutely necessary. BTW, my account never changed in the midst of all these outtages, so it wasn't an infamous sweep.

So in all no this is not a Level 1 severe issue but I don't think it would hurt their CS if they retained the PMUA strategy of at least throwing a bone at customers they inconvenience


Now that you mention it, on two flts in BF they did a U shape path for taking preferences of main entrees.

I thought you couldn't use an RPU within 24 hours?

But the problem may have not even been their fault! If no one else reported the outage, it could well have been some kind of issue with the routing setup between you and UA.

Even if it were UA's fault, I understand it's frustrating to not be able to access the website, but I really don't think that this complaint deserves compensation, sorry. People expecting compensation for these kind of issues is what makes it harder for the rest of us to get compensation for more serious issues.

If R > 0, then you can call in to confirm an immediate upgrade (well that's my experience). Not sure if that's official policy.

However, if R = 0 then you cannot use an RPU within 24 hours.

Just called MilagePlus. No wait time at all and the agent said she would reissue and they would post in 48-72 hours. Very quick and painless.

Same experience here