Looks like KVS came up with a fix.

Another idea instead of having Expert Mode, just re-name it Elite Mode and give it to all your Elite Customers ;).

Ok, I can sort of accept this, but it still seems the issue is with the upgrade/award classes and not revenue fare classes since those are (mostly) being pulled from GDS info. There may be some doing screen scraping for that info as well, but it sounds likely that blocking off the upgrade/award classes will be enough for getting rid of most of the screen scraping.

I presume you agree, however, that there is very real added value in knowing whether the number of seats available is 1, 5, or >9, without having to do many redundant searches that vary the number of seats requested? Hopefully this is on the list to restore.

Yeah, sitting back now and reviewing all the posts and doing some research, I come to the following conclusions:

1) UA continues to show complete disregard to being honest with its customers. The reasons stated by UA for doing this change are false. I tend to be very reluctant to go negative (we do it far to easily and quickly on this forum!), but I see no alternative conclusion. The 'confused customers' reasoning makes no sense. Why not just come out and say they want to stop screen scapers from making money on their info? That would be honest. But, alas, UA does not seem to know how to be honest about anything anymore. So they made up this 'confused customers' story. Sad. About as sad as their other recent stories on why they made changes:
- 1MM Renege: they said they never promised RPUs for life. Also, everyone will like the new plan better than the old one. NOT!!!!
- 1K GPU timing: customers wanted their GPUs earlier, so they are just giving us what we want. NOT!!!!

2) This really is not so bad of a change. Yes, it makes like more difficult for high use fliers like us, but for most instances (upgrades, award availability) there are alternatives. Slower, harder to use, and more expensive (either in my time or money), but given how often UA has crapped on us high mileage fliers recently, I am getting used to it.

So this did not need to be the fiasco that United has made it. If they were honest and really forthright, this could be addressed. But United has decided once again it can pull the wool over our eyes.

Likely due to TODs.

The loss of expert mode really does not upset me - as pointed out - you can still check the upgrade box to view upgrade availability, then repeat sequentially adding one more passenger to get the number in R. Just more time consuming to do.

For changing flights - after you check in - go back in to reservation and see what options it presents when you check the button for change flight. There is no commitment to change - just looking. And this is dynamic - so you need to check throughout the day.

It is the TODs that upset most of us long time CO/UA flyers. And the reason why many of us have switched a lot of our business to AA - where TODs don't exist. And it is the fuzzy individual segment calculation on multi-segment one-ways that is the most upsetting.

Any bets as to how soon UA will take away this functionality for customers?

+1 (emphasis added)

Yes they did, and look at the disclaimer:
So not scraping, but rather an alternate web browser...interesting strategy

It looks like there are two main theories on this thread for the "expert mode" change:

* UA IT incompetence: this is the easiest way for IT to fix some of the upgrade integration problems

* conspiracy theory: UA thinks that uninformed pax will be easier to extract the revenue from

The future may show which one is correct. The fact that this thread grew to 500+ in less than a day, and that there is an agreement about the adverse effect of the change on United customers, should motivate UA to find an alternative, technical solution to the problem (which can be done, not matter what UA IT says) and reinstate the expert mode. If this does not happen, the conspiracy theory wins.

Stop using such common sense. Of course, the answer is probably that "confused" customers has nothing to do with the rationale for implementing this change. Instead, opacity to the customers seems to be the consistent theme from 3/3.

And unfortunately very real value to UA management to keep this information hidden from its most loyal customers so we don't "game" (i.e., make informed decisions in order to increase our chances of actually getting the upgrade our GPU, RPU, or miles are intended for) the system.

Fri Night: Expert Mode goes away
Sat Morning: Ability to book 787 flights is announced.

Coincidence??? Conspiracy??? You decide ... :D :D :D

This is aimed at FTers, not Kayakers
 

Because I'm sure it's the Kayakers that are abusing the system? Don't think so. The uneducated flyer doesn't know squat about figuring out options. They don't even know what the options are, aside from whatever they learn from D Barrett's commercials.

Seriously, this has to be aimed at the power user. That's US. To United, we are the problem. We are the people that they're thinking have just enough information to be really dangerous, and they're thinking maybe if they cut us off, we'll have less to hassle them about. We can't micro-manage our itineraries (and from United's perspective, that's exactly what we're doing... micro-managing things in a way they incorrectly see as abusive while we see as trying to get United to give us the benefits they say we have).

Nah, just the normal UAL manner of doing business.... ready, fire, aim

This is disgusting and extremely disappointing. I, like many, choose flights often based on RN availability as this is usually more important than time/schedule.

Maybe they could at least make the fare classes viewable for logged in elite customers only. I'm gonna have to spend a long time on the phones now trying to search for RN seats while the UA agents on the line pretend to not know what I'm talking about.