Just this morning I was pricing out an itinerary on both UA and AA,but cannot confirm travel and book for a few more days. This decision by UA just made my choice for me-AA it will be.

This is the complete story. Beginning to end. Nothing more to be said than this.

For once, there seems to be something to make us totally UNITED against what seems to be one of the dumbest, most inexplicable moves by this bumbling airline.

I guess only time will tell if Expert Flyer will still have this visibility? UA Insider posted this at 4:47pm....likely before bolting to go home. I wouldn't expect any answers tonight.

Also, if their concern was inadvertently giving people the ability to run scripts to scrape this info from united.com, they could have simply implemented a recaptcha solution to make users type in the text that an image is displaying to prove they are human. I doubt we will ever find out the true reason they are blocking this great feature.

It is sad, unbelievable and stupid. I am done. Unfortunately 5 more revenue flights on UA this year, where I was able to burn my remaining SWUs because
"R" was visible. With that ability gone, that's it. All that's left is to burn my million miles on other *A carriers. Any paid flights will be on AA from now on.

If I were her / him / them, I would have posted it, and then turned in my 2-weeks notice. No job is worth having to tell out-and-out lies week after week. Have some personal integrity.

Why did they even bother to tell us? Why not just do it? It's not like the sh*t storm would be any worse?

The worst part about this is the supposed "explanation". They surely realize how broken their system is and I guess agents, who are trying to do the right thing, upgrade folks with R > 0 just couldn't be stopped so their solution is to kill the whole thing. I'm curious as to what these "better ways to share information" will be. It's a simple solution really, make Expert mode an option you have to select in you profile a la .bomb. Why continue to hide the truth about your motivation for making these changes?

I use the expert mode with every single flight I book. I won't book an international flight unless I know there is R availability. This will drive away the elite customers into the other airlines.

Please reconsider. Or at least have the option of turning on expert mode that was available pre 3/3 on ual.com

I can't wait to watch this thread really explode over the weekend when FT'ers check the boards for the latest and greatest and see this.

Mind boggling to say the least.

You mean the over-entitled freeloaders?

Thanks for the information, Shannon, but this is the latest in a line of really bad news that I have heard from UA since early-March. :rolleyes:

I look forward to seeing the solution that you are working on - and quite honestly - I look forward to hearing any good news from this airline...:(

What a rotten move United. If this ultimately means EF can't see the info either, then it's even more of a shaft to customers.

What makes it even more galling is their explanation that it was partially due to being "confusing to customers". Gimme a break.

Have to apologize, everyone. I think this is my fault. I was flying SFO-IAD this week with a wait listed RPU. Was #7 on the list at T-24 (on a 319 to boot) so I figured it was a lost cause. Around T-12 (at which point I was ~#10) I noticed it changed to R=1, called it in and skipped to the front of the line.

I took advantage of their IT failures and this is the price to pay :(

The thing that confuses me is when they promise I will have a chance to UG and they never give me a UG. That's confusing.

Agreed

Agreed (redux)

Agreed (redux, redux)

Everybody gets a cookie vs just those flying ;)

Brilliant ^

UA DID get it-CO and COdbaUA did not and simply does not get it :td:

Now a question-will non-revs still be able to see fare bucket availability? Obviously for them, that is what they need to see in order to gauge their travel and if yes, why would it be available for them and not us-or is the fare bucket availability being completely turned off thus screwing both loyal customers and the employees who make the airline run?

There's a hole in the fare bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza
There's a hole in the fare bucket, dear Liza a hole