zoegksf

Wow. Just wow. A couple of months ago I bought a rt. On the outbound flight, which is the same flight number from AAA-BBB-CCC but a change of gauge in BBB, I was only able to select my seat on the first leg. Fine I thought, I will deal with it later when I have a minute. Today, having what I thought was a enough time called UA to get second segment seat assignment. Boy was I wrong.
Nice enough guy answers. I ask for 21C or D which is open. He says I have something like 67E. I say I would like 21C or D. He says I will have to get a supervisor. What? Phone agents actually need a sup to make a simple seat assignment? On hold for 28:39 minutes with him every so often checking in.
At around 27 minutes he comes back to check in and I ask him that since we are waiting, could you look at another PNR to see whats happening. He can't because he can only look at one thing at a time. I guess $mi$ek doesn't think our time is so valuable because we are over-entitled to a seat assignment. Agent said I could hang up and he would email me the seat assignment. 45 minutes later, nada.
Seriously, I can only imagine what the labour costs must be now. This long to make a simple seat assignment, 4 to 5 GA's to get a flight out....Pathetic, simple pathetic.

milepig

Are you saying that the system wouldn't let you make the change online? It sounds like you could see open seats but couldn't select them?

hobo13

Sounds about right.

Simple reservations using an e-cert, where I know exactly the flights that I want, take about an hour.

When they ask if I want them to select seats, I politely decline and say I'll do it on the web. I guess that cuts the length of the call by about 1/3!

publicrelasian

I had a similar experience recently that may shed some light.

It was a YVR-IAH-LAX-HNL booking. The IAH-LAX-HNL flight was 'marketed' as a direct flight but it actually has a stopover with change of metals in LAX. I was able to pick seats online for the IAH-LAX leg but couldn't select any seats lower than row 20 (even though they are shown as available -- I couldn't actually click on it). So I called for a seat assignment and what I thought would be a simple transaction but it took about 15 minutes -- the agent was courteous and apologized for the wait but explained that for some reason (I'm assuming it's a CO rule or something) that he couldn't access the seats either and that usually those seats (row 7-19) are assigned at check-in. He said he had to try a number of work-arounds to get the seat assigned but I ended up with 8C.

"If it's any consolation," he said, "this flight is being discontinued soon." I hope it doesn't get discontinued before my scheduled flight.

star_world

You're extremely unlucky - those calls take 10 minutes for me at the most. Less if I make the booking online in advance and call to apply the certificate (if it can't be applied online that is).

channa

SHARES has problems with direct flights. Seat assignments is one of them.

PMUA used to do a nice job with them -- you could select seats for the different legs online.

Pretty much anytime you think you'll have a quick call with UA, assume it'll take half an hour. It's not an unreasonable estimate. Most calls are 20-30 minutes, and I've used a tremendous amount of staff time on basic items since 3/3.

hobo13

The whole point is that you can't make this booking on-line....

The CO flight search engine (whatever you want to call it) can't book certain multi-connection itineraries.....

LAXOGG

.....which is another SHARES limitation that I wish we didn't have to deal with.

star_world

Then you call. And hope you get better agents than you seem to get

channa

+1

Co.com doesn't always show all the flight options in a market. If you want one of the less optimal connections, it doesn't always display. You're further constrained that an e-cert must be used at the beginning of the search, not the end, so the normal trick of forcing a multi-city to get the flights you want.

Some of those restrictions generate a call.


It's more of a website limitation than a SHARES limitation. But it's still a technology usability problem, which CO seems to have a lot of.


Eh, the CO-style ETC certs are very prone to issues. I have two issues in one month where my ticket fell out of the queue and never issued, yet the ETC was charged anyway. I've had this same issue in the past in the CO days.

Your lucky 10-minute maximum can be easily blown away by one ticketing snafu, and you'll be spending an hour to fix it.

star_world

Oh sure - issues can happen. But hobo13's point that "simple reservations" "take about an hour" is laughable. Exceptions can take that long though, no doubt about that.

channa

A simple reservation of two stops each way using an e-cert should not be an exception. That is a pretty straightforward reservation given this route network.

hobo13

I have booked several itineraries in the past week that CO.com could price out by forcing a multi-city itinerary. It could PRICE them just fine, but it could not apply an e-cert since it was supposedly a 'multi-city' itinerary at that point.

On one call, I had a PMUA agent. 45 mins. On another call I got a PMCO agent. 45 mins. They got it done, without complaint, but it took forever. One even thanked me for knowing exactly which flights I wanted, and commented about how I must have carefully chosen the flights to get everything into G, and thus get a <$300 transcon!

We can debate whether I am referring to a simple itinerary. If .bomb could handle it, I maintain it MUST have been simple. Seriously, 2 connections each way, and able to price on CO.com, just not with an e-cert. Sounds pretty simple to me.

But I agree, if your idea of simple is flying EWR-IAH RT's once a month, then yea, I am asking way to much!

star_world

And do you think that most simple reservations of this type will require a call? Or a small proportion of them (each of which would have a huge impact, not to be diminished, of course)? It's hard to tell sometimes

channa

Depends on the market.

If the market is small enough that there aren't enough two-segment options to fill the screen, you'll be okay.

If the market is larger, and the screen fills with two-segment options, the three-segment options won't display, even if they're at the lowest price.