I don't know what "screen scraping" is and I don't care
I don't care how many passengers are in Y/C/F
I don't care how many seats are left in S class so I can time my purchases

These things I mention above are what it looks like some (many) on FT are angry about and since FT is no longer a good indicator of what the general public thinks, (which we have learned since 3/3), we can forget complaining & getting these things back.......they don't care & don't listen to us. (if they did we would all be in HKG now & only 4 miles poorer

BUT....I do care about upgrade space. I won't buy a tkt if R (or O) is not available & I certainly would not buy a W or D fare without first knowing I can confirm it. I have never ever played the lottery & I never will. I would bet losing this hurts many more people then those on FT. It's the main reason anyone used EFlyer (which I used way before I joined FT). This is really showing us that they don't want us to even be able to use our upgrades unless there is a few leftover seats. I don't see any more point to Mileage Plus.

The best we can hope for is the phones getting jammed to the point it costs them $$$$. That they understand (but Thrn again maybe they don't. I have not seen any indication that the AA match or less GS customers have made them take notice)

Yep

I hate the uncertainty that UA builds into their processes. If I am not sure that I get an upgrade that I earned flying 100,000 miles then why on earth should I feel good about paying for a W or higher ticket and play some sort of lottery.

Anyways, back to the issue at hand. The only way a company MIGHT listen is if their service desks get bombarded with complaints.

Booking while blind just doesn't work for me, I guess UA wont be flying me around this planet for much longer either. Pathetic to say the least.

Following the inundation of calls to CS I'll be waiting for the flyer who reports when UA CS reps say they aren't allowed to tell us what the R availability is for a flight .. just the next stepping stone. Mark my words.

Shannon, if that is the case why did you stop providing the data on awards and upgrades to Expert Flyer??? All we can see now is the revenue buckets.

The problem with what your saying is twofold. One). Now we are forced to call in & take up time from agents. If an R seat becomes avail right before you call, your still "jumping the line" so there is no difference. Your still getting that newly avail R seat before someone that was on a wait list & Two) even though what you say is theoretically true, so what!!! That's not our problem. Upgrades should NOT clear in batches. They should clear in real time like they always did w UA before the merger & UA has a lot more experience w this then CO since CO never wanted to give out GPU's in the first place? Not our fault that SHARES Is so limited in what it can & can't do

Send this to Shannon, don't just post it

Remember - Shannon's just the messenger. This is a company where the CEO does not even listen to his top execs. Unfortunatly, Shannon does the best she can with what she has. I'm sure it was not her decision to send this out on Friday night

Hrm....
Book ticket
Check upgrade page to see if can confirm instantly
If can then apply upgrade.. if not then call in and waste 15min of CSR time then cancel ticket

Rinse and repeat

I don't really care how much CSR time is wasted. What matters to me (and most angry FT'ers here) is how much of OUR time is wasted .. which by your trial and error method is .. considerable. Good thoughts though ..

Question for UA:

Forget for a moment about the potential of lost business due to flyers who now find other airlines more attractive after this service devaluation.

Has UA calculated the volume of call time to the Premier and ordinary reserations desks which the "Fare Class" function eliminated to date?

Has UA considered how much additional employee phone time it will take for your members, especially Premier members, to obtain the fare class information which UA customers now access at no cost to the airline.

Has UA considered the financial cost of having to devote much more reservation-agent phone time to finding what's available for upgrades, awards and W class?

Is UA aware that a great number of UA customers simply search what the want, specifically inputting flights which do not show up in the regular award or paid tix search, and then do the upgrade or award purchase online (or at worst, calling up and providing the exact itinerary request, which takes much less time)?

I think this will be a major boondoggle for UA.

I didn't even mention the issue of being forced to increase res desk staff, which is expensive, or increase phone wait times, which drives business away.

What a fun day to be Shannon!

Taking UA at their word that this is not about TOD upgrades and that we will get access back someday. Still, it's baffling that the solution isn't "fix it first, and then replace it" rather than "generate lots of ill will among high-margin pax."

Just one data point --

I noticed the change today when I went looking to plan Mrs. mwc8962's ORD-SIN trip next month. But with no visibility to ON space, there's a bit less incentive to send the $7K to UA. Maybe it wouldn't be so bothersome if her GPUs expired 12/31 instead of 10/31...

FWIW, you can tell by my # of posts that I'm not a frequent FT user -- I'm noting this just to point out that the change is deplored by more than just high-volume posters, because I suspect UA of calculations that say "hey, there's 75 guys on FT who are going to piss and moan about this, but that's NBD." I think there are many more high-margin, non-FTers who are driven to expand their horizons by this.

What are a few of the issues? If I could see what the problems are then maybe I would not feel that United is just making it harder and making me spend more money to use my awards.

If I recall from my limited use of the old CO site, the information removed is the same information which was always available their. If so, what happened to cause this same information to become such a problem now? If not, what additional information is causing this problem?

United is truly winning the race to the bottom. Congrats! United is #1 again.

United has no respect whatsoever for its passengers and is only interested in what a passenger will do for United today on a particular flight. But

Thanks for posting Shannon. I wonder, why didn't UA figure out how to get fare class info available to the "experts" (especially R/O inventory) before taking it away for everyone? Clearly many of us use fare class info on a regular basis.

This is completely ridiculous. A MAJOR devaluation.

Now they can do ToDs freely...

I really appreciated getting accurate flight availability information during irrops, when I could say "um, I think there's a routing through Houston available -- can you check UAxx followed by UAxx?". Prior to the 3/3 merger I had to do this with third-party availability data which were slightly out of date, meaning occasional conversations where an agent would say things like "I know you have some reason to think that flight is V1, but in our system it is V0".

If you'd like to know whether there's R inventory, you can still use "advanced search" to find a Y-class ticket and select the "MileagePlus Upgrade Award" check box that also checks for award availability, then check the output to see whether the cost includes $ and miles (upgrade confirmable instantly) or just $ (flight is R0).

You can also do this programmatically. I think as long as united.com provides a self-serve way to see whether the flight you're about to buy can be upgraded, frequent travelers will be able to write software to check the same thing. Since upgrade certificates tend to occasionally get "stuck" (flight > R0, waitlisted upgrade not processed), there will still be a customer need for these data.

(On flights which are sold full in coach, I can't think of a way to know whether there is R inventory.)