UA blocks Third Party Sites (TripIt Pro/Award Wallet/etc.) from Accessing M+ Accounts
Dec 10, 2012, 11:35 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Denver, CO
Programs: UA 1K 25 years/2MM, Honors LT Diamond, AVIS & Hertz Prez Club
Posts: 4,753
UA blocks Third Party Sites (TripIt Pro/Award Wallet/etc.) from Accessing M+ Accounts
Just received this from TripIt, disappointing to say the least.
Dear TripIt Pro member,
We are writing because our records show that you are tracking your United MileagePlus account with TripIt Pro's point-tracker feature.
United no longer allows third-party services to access MileagePlus accounts. Starting tomorrow, TripIt Pro can no longer track your United MileagePlus miles, but we'll continue to store your account number for you.
Why is this happening?
There are differing opinions in the travel industry about whether your reward-program accounts should be accessible to third parties to whom you've given permission. Some travel providers have decided not to allow this access.
What is TripIt doing about it?
TripIt, on behalf of travelers everywhere, will continue to drive conversations with travel-industry partners towards a solution that works for everyone.
In the meantime, we're focused on growth and new features. In fact, we've expanded TripIt Pro's point tracker to 120 reward programs, including air, hotel, transportation, parking, dining, and credit card rewards. Plus you can can now add new programs to your account from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch (coming soon to Android).
In line with TripIt's mission to make life easier for travelers, our goal is to give you secure access to as many of your reward programs as possible, in one place.
What can you do?
Speak up. Declare your right to share your personal travel data with third parties like TripIt. Make your voice heard by contacting your airline reward program; and by joining the conversation on our blog, Facebook, and Twitter using the #freemypoints hashtag.
Dear TripIt Pro member,
We are writing because our records show that you are tracking your United MileagePlus account with TripIt Pro's point-tracker feature.
United no longer allows third-party services to access MileagePlus accounts. Starting tomorrow, TripIt Pro can no longer track your United MileagePlus miles, but we'll continue to store your account number for you.
Why is this happening?
There are differing opinions in the travel industry about whether your reward-program accounts should be accessible to third parties to whom you've given permission. Some travel providers have decided not to allow this access.
What is TripIt doing about it?
TripIt, on behalf of travelers everywhere, will continue to drive conversations with travel-industry partners towards a solution that works for everyone.
In the meantime, we're focused on growth and new features. In fact, we've expanded TripIt Pro's point tracker to 120 reward programs, including air, hotel, transportation, parking, dining, and credit card rewards. Plus you can can now add new programs to your account from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch (coming soon to Android).
In line with TripIt's mission to make life easier for travelers, our goal is to give you secure access to as many of your reward programs as possible, in one place.
What can you do?
Speak up. Declare your right to share your personal travel data with third parties like TripIt. Make your voice heard by contacting your airline reward program; and by joining the conversation on our blog, Facebook, and Twitter using the #freemypoints hashtag.
Dec 10, 2012, 11:36 am
#2
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Northeast Kansas | Colorado Native
Programs: Amex Gold/Plat, UA *G, Hyatt Globalist, Marriott LT Gold, NEXUS, TSA Disparager Unobtanium
Posts: 21,605
I suppose it was only a matter of time with AA (& DL?) blocking the various points trackers.
to COdbaUA.
to COdbaUA.
Dec 10, 2012, 11:45 am
#3
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Jersey Shore/YYZ
Programs: UA 1K, Marriott Plat, Hilton Diamond, Hertz PC
Posts: 12,521
Dec 10, 2012, 11:49 am
#4
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Denver, CO
Programs: UA 1K 25 years/2MM, Honors LT Diamond, AVIS & Hertz Prez Club
Posts: 4,753
I'd say this is overreacting. Services like mint.com allow you to pool your financial services information from multiple sources for analysis. If you choose to provide the access to the third party then you accept the associated liabilities. Perhaps airlines (and other firms) can develop a "third party authenticator" to add to the existing userID/password combo to be used when you want a machine/third party to access your data.
Dec 10, 2012, 11:51 am
#5
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: Tucson, AZ USA
Programs: DL-Platinum / AS-PlatPro / Hyatt - Glob / Hilton-Diamond
Posts: 1,573
If I choose to give out my number and password to others, that's my choice.
If/when such breach does occur then wouldn't the fault lie with the system that was breached ?
Dec 10, 2012, 11:52 am
#6
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: PSM
Posts: 69,232
But let's not forget that UAdbaUA was reasonably aggressive in pushing to stop scraping of its site for various inventory resources. Hardly a COdbaUA moment here.
Dec 10, 2012, 12:16 pm
#7
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Jersey Shore/YYZ
Programs: UA 1K, Marriott Plat, Hilton Diamond, Hertz PC
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I'm well-aware of that fact. I'm just postulating as to why UA and American and Southwest are doing this proactively.
Dec 10, 2012, 12:44 pm
#9
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: Tucson, AZ USA
Programs: DL-Platinum / AS-PlatPro / Hyatt - Glob / Hilton-Diamond
Posts: 1,573
But do we know that the airline's main incentive here is security ?
Or is it that when getting balances from Trip-It, we're not seeing the advertising banners on the airline's web (tho I doubt frequent users pay ant attention to them ... I know I don't).
Or maybe, like sbm12 kinda mentioned, it's the issue of 3rd parties doing massive hits to scrape the database ?
Probably many reasons why the decision was made. But as always, it was made totally without regard to the customer's point of view. Once again, what a lot of us consider a useful tool, has been yanked from under our seats without any justification being given.
Dec 10, 2012, 1:09 pm
#10
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Washington, DC
Programs: UA 1K 1MM, AA, DL
Posts: 7,418
Dec 10, 2012, 1:38 pm
#12
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: New York, NY
Programs: Hyatt GLOB, Marriott Lifetime PLT, UA 1K 1MM.
Posts: 1,728
it is. once AAdvantage blocked off tripit for monitoring points, i basically gave up from using tripit to monitor that. i just keep a mental tally now. annoying, but what can you do, seems to not just be an isolated AA (or now UA) thing.
Dec 10, 2012, 1:39 pm
#14
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: PSM
Posts: 69,232
Per a conversation I'm having right now with folks at UA PR, UsingMiles is not affected. They have agreed to a formal data sharing arrangement with UA to cover their access.
ETA: Here is the full statement I got from UA:
ETA: Here is the full statement I got from UA:
United issued cease and desist letters to certain mileage management companies that market to MileagePlus members. We encourage each of these organizations seeking to extract data from united.com on behalf of our customers to enter into a formal agreement with United in order to ensure compliance with the Terms, Conditions, and Legal Notices contained on united.com. United is happy to explore these formal partnerships. In fact, we already have a relationship with one such organization - UsingMiles.
Last edited by sbm12; Dec 10, 2012 at 1:52 pm
Dec 10, 2012, 3:14 pm
#15
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: PDX
Programs: DL DM, AS MVP 100K, Amtrak peon, Colbert Lifetime Platinum
Posts: 4,534
Just got an e-mail from LinkedIn that their new profile is being forced on me tomorrow. TripIt's My Travel integration isn't compatible with the new profile, and therefore the app will be disabled. Not a good week for TripIt!
The formatting has been pretty funky since 3/3 and I find I have to enter more fields manually now.
The formatting has been pretty funky since 3/3 and I find I have to enter more fields manually now.