Silver Fox

From the article "Shannon Kelly, United’s director of customer insights."

Talk about rubbing salt in the wound.

USAF Flyboy

This is clearly a calculated move that was planned in advance, executed according to an internal perception of company benefit, and won't be rolled back unless there is a clear business reason not to. TOD upgrades will always trump elite benefits.

The only voice UA cares about any more is the revenue voice. So, despite being an IAD flyer with lots of UA flight options, the last 5 months and $16k spend have gone to AA. I have 3 TATL flights on the books, two in C, and they will get all of my business next year (except a VS flight or two). It's worth it to me to do a connection and add an hour to be in F and get treated with respect. End of argument. UA...doesn't....care....about any of this "response". Cash talks. Period.

hughw

Can you add functionality to provide alerts?

Wingnut71

I work at a business where we treat our customers like gold. I understand that UA wants to milk every penny of revenue from every seat. These are not mutually exclusive options.

You folks at UA who are reading this...come on...you are some of the brightest people in business. A bunch of you went to the best business schools right? Why does this have to be a WIN/LOSE type of deal? I find it really hard to believe that there isn't a WIN/WIN here. You can get every last nickel out of the kettles and there should still be some reward space and perks for those of us who travel enough miles to get to the Elite levels.

HOW TO BE A GENIUS AT UNITED AND MOVE UP THE EXECUTIVE RANKS LIKE A SPEEDING BULLET:
Use your brain, have some guts and solve this problem...you will make Smysek look like a hero...all his promises will come true and people will start saying nice things about him. Your personal stock will rise!!! Whadya think UAers? You could start feeling good about your job and your company again!

chinatraderjmr

I just got an email from Award Wallet saying DL was pulling their info as well. I know it's not exactly price fixing but I would bet with DL's timing as well as AC now also pulling their bucket transparency as well that the airlines got together & discussed this first. I guess it's not illegal but others would know better then I. At least it's not UA picking on us. It looks like they are all doing this. My guess is AA comes next

ibuyyoufly

Correct! They know the Elite/MP Member attrition rate to the decimal I'm sure. I don't think there's a cohesive plan or strategy as one would expect, but as they stumble across revenue generating ideas they can pull some triggers. An every month or so change rate is slow enough to keep most around.

The pot with the frogs in it has been set on Medium. Only the "fair" skinned species have jumped out early.

wilp888

I have just sent a message to Chase about my unhappiness with the policies of the United management team. Although I own a very small company and charge only about 500k on our MP credit cards annually, if enough of us with Chase cards contact the bank and voice our concerns, they may relay our displeasure in a far more effective method than our posting on FT. With Chase purchasing billions of dollars in MP miles, I'm sure they will take note of their cardholders moving to other airlines and cancelling their credit cards.

eflyte

Wow..., this is even dumber than the 4 mile GF Hong Kong round trips. As if the value of UG instruments hadn't already been diluted enough this year...

EsquireFlyer

UA is against alerts and will probably sue KVS, or at least threaten to do so, if such functionality is added.
Currently, for award/upgrade availability, KVS basically just works by automating a .bomb search for you, and putting it in a more convenient format. But KVS doesn't offer automation or anything that gives its users an actual "leg up" vs. non-users when redeeming award availability. And from what I heard/read online, it was the "advantage" provided by EF alerts which got the airline(s) pissed at EF. (or so they claimed?)

Red_Rob

I had a GS agent offer to do the searches from Hubs to all European gateways for a vacation, and then call me back with options.

blue47

Technically, if the misconnects are truly random, then the probability of one misconnect is proportional to the number of seats sold. But it is not completely random, and is a function of typical connect times for the flight intake, and typical origins for flight connects. Our world is not always random.

I think Seth is correct. But, psychologically I feel better when I am looking for a CPU to see lots of unsold seats up front.

fsfsfsfs

Great! Will this GS agent now help the non-GS MP members with similar searches?

I've contacted 1kvoice but will wait for the usual 30 day response time...

cyborg

This is directly related to a customer facing point of sale web service. Could this qualify as price fixing and run afoul of anti-trust regulations?

Is there someone with legal experience that can chime in?

V/r,

-Cyborg

Red_Rob

Spend enough to make GS and you too can be treated as well as Gold's 10 years ago or GM's 20 years ago.

dulcamara

Do than and I'm in.