Add me to the unhappy flyers. This is a horrible retro step. The "expert mode" which we can opt into will solve the alleged "confusing" issues to less active flyers.

Maybe because the issue is screen scraping impacting the services and servers in negative ways like was hinted at.....because some sources were doing them in bad ways, or with bad code, or very overly aggressive in their tactics...

Yep, I am stuck on this issue, I think there is more to it than people think. I've seen what screen scraping continually can do to a services. I've been hit by amazon EC scrape scans so intensive they are like a DDOS...and it wasn't even intentional, it was looping code.

"Expert Mode" Changes
 

Ok, I've read most of the reactions except the last few pages. I do think people are over-reacting.

1) You don't have to book "blindly" for an instrument upgrade. AFAIK the "request upgrade" check box is still there and it will show you if a flight is available for confirmed upgrade or not. Instead of being shown the # of seats, you'll get a "yes" or "no" answer.

2) Revenue bucket info is still available on KVS and ExpertFlyer. If you're really using this info ever day, $100/yr is worth it. Plus you get inventory and seat alerts. So you can still check availability for SDC (flight alerts are great for this too) and you can still try to gauge upgrade chances based on the CDJZ buckets (or whatever they are now). And FWIW, no other domestic airline shows (revenue) inventory buckets on their websites.

3) Yes, this somewhat closes the loophole/bug for when a wait list doesn't clear despite there being "R" inventory. That's probably a good thing - at least it's a fair thing. But you can still check for availability per #1 above, and you can still call in. So it's not completely closed.

So I challenge someone to spell out how this will *really* impact the information they are able to get. Perhaps it makes it a little more expensive or time consuming, but to claim it as the end of the world is just going too far IMHO.

And yes, I get how this impacts your views of UA management and what they think of their frequent fliers, but let's try to focus on this specific issue.

If only the motives they state we're true, that it led to confusion. The cynic in me thinks they wanted to take away information from the "over entitled". The less we know the less we can work the system to get our upgrades.

So are you defending this new policy? I'm sure some are.

Laziness? Incompetence?

Yes, some great ideas for folks with lots of available time.

Because before we could see when upgrades were not clearing properly.

All this is a covert (or overt for people who know what is happening) mission to cover up TODs trumping instruments etc...

I would have no problem if this was the case as long as it was published and people could then make their own decision on where to place their airline loyalty..

I think we should give it some time before jumping to conclusions. As an IT person I'm also aware of how straining constant scrapes are, even to enterprise grade systems. IMHO this might be a simple case of good intentions, but bad execution and they just don't have a working solution to it. It very well might be that they'll find an alternate way of showing it to us but they just don't have it yet. Bad IT execution, yes, but I'm not pulling out my tin hat anti-consumer pitchfork quite yet.

I do agree it's a damned inconvenience though, no arguing that one.

Will the execs not be back on Monday ?

:td::td::td:

Why don't you take away the ability to book online too?! so we don't see the cheapest fares!

This is a horrible change...

Again as stated before a simple "enter code" system would eliminate this problem.

Options for addressing Sept 8 changes to 'Expert Mode'
 

For those who continue to fly United after this change, reading the thread from UAInsider caused me to question how fliers can find ways of adapting to this change.

As one example, a poster mentioned 'Milewise' and noted that the site is returning award search results.



Another mentioned that they have Sabre access and haven't seen 'non-revenue' inventory in their access. It had been discussed that subscription services were 'scraping' UA's web site as opposed to using native GDS/CRS data.

Other posts share potential workarounds and other options. I thought it would be productive to separate those options, real and potential, out from the reaction to the announcement.

Agreed, this is somewhat mitigated.
Don't get me even STARTED on this. I already pay $50 year to TripIt because it notifies me about United flight changes and cancellations, which United.com does NOT. I do NOT get notifications from United.com when my upgrades clear! I have to go and manually check my itineraries to see if it cleared - this is both for GPU and CPU. The ONLY reason I subscribed to ExpertFlyer is to fill in the GAP that United.com did not do. So now, the most valuable gap - upgrade inventory availability - is GONE - and I need to subscribe to something just to see revenue bucket availability? That's RIDICULOUS.
Specific issue that Untied is making the lives of its most frequent flyers HARDER. We can't gauge fare bucket availability. We can't easily check upgrades without jumping through hoops. The same tasks that were possible before are either more expensive now(have to subscribe to another service) or take more time to complete on united.com

That is the big issue. United is NOT trying to make our travel experience better. It' making it worse.

They had to remove this feature. It was an entitlement and we are all over entitled! What will UA do to piss us off next!?

True. But I would submit that a binary yes/no is a *lot* less informative than a specific number. As just a couple of examples, suppose you want to book more than one ticket, or you want to make an educated guess about whether you can wait until tomorrow (not guaranteed of course, but if R9 lots better odds than R1).
No. It's not on KVS, as has been (repeatedly) reported upthread. EF, true, but a much clunkier interface IMO. But if EF stays, agree that this is lower impact than #1.