Damn fine reply for page 1 of this thread! ;)
I seriously doubt that I'll care enough to read through the next 83 pages.

Similar to what another FT member said (on Page 2)....

Shannon, you deserve better than to have to spin corporate nonsense like this to United customers.

Unless Jeff $ and his "team" find a way to return to the real world of customer service (and damn fast), it's looking like I finally need to consider cashing out my miles and finally saying au revoir. I'm pretty sad and disappointed, because United has always earned my loyalty over many decades until this year.

Add me to the list of lowly 2P lurkers who really value this feature at both ends of the fare scale. Mileage Plus remains the most compelling of FFPs, and Channel 9 and E+ are good features, but every move United thinks I'll like pushes me further towards being a Kayaker.

The system crash was due to a hardware failure - not software. The backup hardware failed too. This would not be a reason for this change.

The apparent reason for removing the "EXPERT" feature is all the "EXPERTS" calling res when "R" availability pops up and a wait listed upgrade doesn't come through. Going to the same well over & over and pissing off res agents for an upgrade could just possibly be the reason the well got poisoned.

Just in case noone has quite figured it out yet (6 mo's) after the merger, the new UA doesn't care if ANYONE fly's for free in their first class section and they certainly don't care - WHO CARES!

Time to "Suck It Up" and either go along with the program or jump the fence where others have found greener pastures!

It's their way or the highway, and if you don't like it write a letter to customer service --- Let us know how that works out for you!!!

If the system was doing the job it was supposed to, there'd be NO need to call when R>0 on a GPU/RPU. However, it doesn't do it's job, IME.
Calls to have an upgrade handled and the reservations put back into sync have just been commonplace since the takeover. Err, merger.

Dave

WSJ Middle Seat Article Today
 

In today's Wall Street Journal, The Middle Seat column by Scott McCartney, describes some extraordinary customer service being doled out by Delta and Lufthansa to their most valuable frequent flyers. This is in contrast to United's treatment of FF. The article is here...
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/...aletleft_email

Numerous threads have talked about collectively taking some form of action. I chose to write Scott the email below, with the hope that he will continue to write about the treatment of FF at United. If you would like to add your voice, Scott's email is... [email protected]


Hello Scott -

Your article about Delta and Porsche today was very interesting and is in distinct contrast to how United's frequent flyers feel they are being treated. In the article you wrote, "As much as 75% of airline revenue typically comes from 25% of passengers. The top-level members of an airline frequent-flier program are the most highly coveted by a carrier—and its competitors." Using Flyertalk.com as a barometer, United's frequent flyers are not feeling the love!

I want to thank you for your recent blog post reporting the outrage of United frequent flyers over the elimination of "Expert Mode", which affords the ability to see seat inventory by fare class. This is only one of the perks/benefits/tools that United has chosen to take away from their loyal road warriors since the merger with Continental. Profit maximization is a rational goal of management, still I find it amazing that United has chosen a strategy of alienating it's "most coveted" customers. Isn't it logical that there should be some form of Win / Win relationship between United and their most frequent flyers?

You are a well read and respected columnist on air travel and you are featured in the WSJ, the premier daily business publication. This may not be your thing, but I am hoping you may be an advocate for those of us suffering in the middle seat.

Regards,

There were some protests with PMCO but in most cases it didnt do anything and PMCO stuck with whatever it was they wanted and had done.

The problem is hard as it is to believe most Companys dont see FTers as the vast majority of their customers, just probably the biggest and loudest Complainers when things go against them. Since FTers are in reality a small % of the total population why would any company simply listen to them every time they complain about something

If enough members (non FTers) join in then maybe they will rehash something. I know I would take what most people post on FT with a grain of sand, I might relook at the issue and if I still think the company will be better off $$ wise in the end , I wouldnt care what FTers or any group thought. If the $$ amount wasnt going to be significant then maybe I would revert back to what was

Hey Dave, we agree 100% on this one.

UA is screwed up, BIG TIME, and their answer to solve EVERYTHING is to hide EVERYTHING!

That'll learn them "EXPERTS" that keep calling us!!!

This was previously done, for different reasons, by Jet Airways back in the 1990s. Under Indian gov't regulations they could only act as an "air taxi" service and were prohibited from publishing a timetable. Their solution was to have flights labelled as "breakfast", "late breakfast", "late lunchtime", and "high tea", which people understood to mean 7am, 9:25am, 1:50pm, and 5pm departures.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...industry.india

The purported reasons don't stack up when it's noted that the upgrade and award availability has also been removed from ExpertFlyer, where ONLY experts would want to try and understand the fare bucket availability.

This change is insane. What on earth do they gain? Fewer phone calls? It was such a useful feature. Bah! :(

Seriously?
 

Been on vacation for the past 10 days and successfully ignored FT. When I returned yesterday I was, needless to say, surprised I couldn't see the "fare buckets" on my two reservations in "B" and "Y" to KWI and NRT over the next two months. It's rare that I book in Economy (Plus) without the ability to guarantee the GPU (assuming I haven't used them all) or mileage upgrade, but for these two reservations I was forced to.

Going forward, though, does UA seriously think 1Ks are going to have any interest in maintaining that status if the one "real" benefit (the 6 GPUs) is no longer transparent and thus generally "easy to use"? Instead of spending a few minutes (or even hours) online researching my options for ticket purchase and upgrade availability, then actually purchasing my ticket and being done with it, they really want me spending hours of their agents' time on the phone, risking that the (often uninformed) agent can't or won't help me find GPU-available flights, and then having me hang up the phone--not purchasing a ticket throughout the entire process?

Seriously? For the past 7 months I've been one of those UA die-hards that has put up with UA's pitiful integration into UAdbaCO and hoped for better things to come. I didn't status match with AA, and I've continued to fly my 1K+ miles annually and gladly use my 6 SWU/GPUs. But if I can no longer do that with some modicum of ease, forget it. As a 2MM flyer with "lifetime Platinum" (until they take it away), UA has literally taken away my sole practical reason for flying their airline 100,000+ miles per year. If this isn't changed back in fairly short order, I'll finally liquidate my 800,000 miles and take my "Y", "B" and "M" international fares to a different airline.

Did they seriously do this? Has anyone in the Willis Tower ever attended "Problem Solving 101"? Rather than fix the "R" inventory issues with IT, they just kill the functionality?

Source?

Well said +1

United says hardware issue caused outage
Other references toward the end of http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ssion-etc.html.

don't beleive UA has been that specific about the issue but seem speculative discussion in http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...omplaints.html