Is "HAL" dead??
 

I hope that perhaps I've done something wrong, but I can't seem to get voice recognition when I call the 1K phone number.

Am I the only one?
Thanks! Dave

My guess, new system. The CO system.

Unlike the old system (that actually worked), I get "Thank you for calling the United Air Lines Mileage Plus Premier Line.... I looked up the number you're calling from, and found an account.. Am I speaking to FS?"

However, the voice recognition is horrible. I'm guessing that we've lost the true HAL from UA.

Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that
 

Wait until you try calling from an airport under irrops and the background noise shoots HAL all to he|| and back.

Now has anyone been successful in simply saying "reservations" vs "existing reservations"? Evidently my voice* saying "reservations" results in "Book a flight. Is that correct?" :rolleyes:


*must be my Boston accent ;)

I'm sure calling from the airport is awful, and I can remember some situations where I called from gate areas that had screaming/angry pax, PAs overhead, etc, and the old system worked flawlessly.

Every time I've called since 3/3, I often have to repeat myself two or three times. This evening, I called twice, and both times I had to should "Book a flight" to get an agent. Saying it normally wouldn't go through, despite the fact that I'm indoors and there is no background noise. :confused:

This system is too noise sensitive! :eek: :td:

Is "HAL" dead??

Yes, I shot his a$$ yesterday from the UC in ORD when he kept repeating the same question, over & over & over & over!

I'd rather be there, and there, and there, and there, and theeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrre than listen to this redundant HALitosis excuse of a change that I think that I'm suppose to like, particularly after 25 mins of not being able to get through to a real live person!!!:mad:

I agree. As a 1K, I find the new phone system insulting. It fits right in with the other devaluation of my 1K benefits post-merger. 1K really is meaningless to SMI/J. AA is looking better and better.

Same voice, worse results with phone IVR system
 

Is it just me, or is HAL (the UA phone robot) much worse at parsing spoken responses now than he was several weeks back?

My last three calls have necessitated me repeating myself over and over; HAL doesn't even seem able to recognize "YES" without me drawing it out into a 3-second-long pronunciation.

It took four tries to get to "Existing Reservations"--HAL kept saying, "Book a flight--if you don't want to book a flight, say, 'go back,' now." I tried just "existing" (which worked under PMUA's IVR) in case the "reservations" bit was throwing him off, but that got a, "Sorry, I didn't understand that," response.

He seemed to have no issues recognizing "go back," at least. :rolleyes:

This was on my home phone in a relatively quiet environment. I fortunately haven't had to call while in a noisy airport terminal yet (which always caused problems for PMUA HAL--I can't imagine how much worse it will be now).

Agreed!
 

Yes HAL is either hard of hearing or just lagging...

I had my itinerary change, had to call in to confirm the change so they could reissue the ticket - and it took 40 min to do what had been done in 3 min in the past.

LAME if you ask me :td:

It's not just you:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...-hal-dead.html

This stupid IVR can't recognize me at home with no kids, no dog, no TV on, no nothing. To make matters worse, I think my new MP number, when converted to only numbers, like when you type it out on a phone, is the same as that of another member.

I thought HAL was unable to hear me, so I typed out the first 3 characters, which are letters in my case, on my numeric phone keypad, then followed with the 5 numbers. Then the stupid thing asked me for my zip code, which was a new one for me. OK, I typed it in, and it told me 3 times in a row that it wasn't the right zip code.

So much for being able to access the system in a noisy airport. I KNOW the intellectual giants that run UA IT overlooked the fact that when the letters are typed out on a phone keypad, some MP numbers won't be unique. I just know it. After all, none of them noticed that upgrades to F from paid C on a 3-cabin were being assigned to the AWARD code ON! Idiots.

My number is suddenly not recognized and I'm getting very tired of having to repeat my number to that annoying ugly step brother of HAL who rudely tells me to speak louder whenever I am using a headset.

And the same with me :(. Looks like something wasn't broken got fixed. :rolleyes:

Does anybody know you key-in the alpha part of the new UA MP number? PMUA numbers were all numeric so no confusion.

e.g. do I dial "12" to represent "AD"?

I find that when I do so, it seems to send me to a queue with a long wait (minutes). Instead if I say my number (instead of keying it in), I get an additional prompt asking me to confirm my zipcode. This prompt does not occur when I key in my number. After entering my zipcode, I get a rep in (usually) seconds.

I'd rather not have to say my number aloud.

Believe in that approach 2=ABC 3=DEF .....but I have attempted that approach multiple times and it does not work for me.

My old MP number still works but keypad entry of the new id does not :confused:

Strange, this works fine for me every time.

Happy to report that I called yesterday and the system recognized me from my phone number.

That is completely not true about having to enter one's MP ny
Number on every call! Some mis-informed UA agent you had there!

In 5 years, pmUA and UACO, not once.. at all.. has the 1K line, or any UA number, _ever_ recognized my phone number. I didn't even know it COULD until I saw this thread.

Still broken (as noted above) for me :(

And for me. :(

Make that three of us. :(
Dave

Not a good type of hat-trick ;) and this is getting as bad as dreading Saturday mornings and schedule changes as it now appears that every time COdbaUA decides to fix something, they break something else that actually worked properly :rolleyes:

To add: Now it's not recognizing my home phone phone number as well :(

Well fwiw, both my cell (primary) and home (secondary) numbers are now both being recognized this morning. Now if only other more important things can get fixed as quickly as this ;)

The 1K line always recognizes my number, as another 1K member's number. The first agent said they couldn't fix it. The second agent told me I needed to, obviously not understanding my problem.

My phone number has not been recognized for at least 3 months. And I'm not sure I even get a "1K Agent" about half the time. I've gotten the ICC a few times other times they just answer the phone "Premier Line." Is there a new number for the "1K desk?"

Not liking most of the changes.

I've never had great luck with the voice recognition from United (works just fine with AA though...) so I just always type my MP# and Zip Code in. Works just fine that way...

CO to UA
 

Coming from CO, the system automatically recognizing me by my caller ID phone number is a big upgrade.

Too bad it's completely offset by its inability to:

1) recognize "existing reservations". at. all.

2) recognize "yes"

3) recognize anything, really

This must be the CO system because that system had trouble recognizing anything also, even spelled out OnePass numbers, I always had to type it in on the keypad. Good thing "1" = "Yes", so I can fix #2. Delta has pretty good IVR voice recognition.

Is "HAL" dead??
 

Interestingly enough, in the few days post 3/3, the system recognized me by phone number. However, have had to type in my MP number since about end of march, every time.

Conversations with HAL
 

This is how a lot of my conversations with HAL goes:

HAL: I looked up the number you are calling from and found and account is this your name H J E N S E N 7 9 please answer yes or no
hjensen79: Yes
HAL: I am not sure I understood that can you please repeate
hjensen79: Yes
HAL: I looked up the number you are calling from and found and account is this your name H J E N S E N 7 9 please answer yes or no
hjensen79: Yeeeees
HAL: Please answer only Yes or No
HAL: I looked up the number you are calling from and found and account is this your name H J E N S E N 7 9 please answer yes or no
hjensen79: Yes
HAL: Sorry I was not able to understand you, goodbye

This phone system drives me CRAZY.....

Once I pass the Yes/No question, I usually try to see how many times I have to say Agent before I get an agent (mostly 2-3times, the third time is just me making sure that HAL knows).

It is 23 as per the phone keyboard.
That seems to work almost all the time and it then gets me to the zip code for confirmation = > agent in seconds

But HAL is dead. I don't care for NED, the CO voice.