Easy international re-booking on CO just never happened for me. There are lots of old threads on CO's failings in this department (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/conti...adsmerged.html is a thread where I posted one of my experiences).

The problem I had was getting them to handle IRROPS on cheap international business class fares. Say you had a $4000 North America->DEL routing booked in Z that went mechanical. You could go to CO with a set of perfectly viable alternative routings on Lufthansa, Asiana, whatever, and they'd laugh you out of the building.

I've been fortunate since the merger and have not experienced a canceled international flight that required a complicated re-accomodation. But some of the stories posted in this forum since 3/3 seem to indicate UA has taken the PMCO attitude towards IRROPS rebookings. It'd be beyond awesome if the policy is officially "do what it takes to get the customer there today" and the agents uniformly followed it.

fwiw, with the new policy, you should have no difficulty with that kind of scenario. While this isn't the internal policy that agents follow, the following is the (publicly available) guidance that United has sent to travel agents about the new rebooking policy:

https://www.united.com/web/format/pd...Parameters.pdf

Generally the internal policy is more generous than the exceptions that UA allows travel agents to make without prior authorization.

That happened to me on a MX from LIH recently. Rebooked automatically. Unfortunately they did not do it for my companion. :(

IRROPS only allows rebook into JV partner. If best available alternative is not one of those, then pax is screwed.

Schedule change restricts option to UA only with 4 classes higher which will not work for cheap ticket close in or routes barely served by UA or with tough interline connections.

No accommodation whatsoever for a misconnect??

No change to amenities? The policy stated on the website under "amenities" lists the hotel and meals policy. So your statement effectively says no change to hotel policy? Also, existing amenity policy shows no factor played by status. Your statement also implies no change to status applying?

Since you stated that the policy is now in effect, and this type of policy is publicly posted on the web site just now out of date, why can't we be made aware? or, are you implying/fear that this now will be internal proprietary policy?

Looks like old stuff and the source of my observations referenced above.

"always"? Since 1K/GS are sUA statuses, this implies you are saying that sUA policy has continued after merger. In numerous occurrences posted on FT you will see that experiences have varied dramatically but are usually rooted in whatever system the agent came from. Did an sCO agent give you the hotel and show you a current policy indicating you are entitled regardless of reason? The policy on the web site above simply states vaguely: "may", not "always".

Like others noted above, I've also experienced proactive rebooking recently. On a r/t ABQ-SYD in early December, I had delays that induced tight connections both ways. In both cases, I got an prompt email saying I'd been protected on a convenient later connection.

And, frankly, I have to give UA ops a ^^^ for the execution. In one case they protected me on AA in full Y. And in both cases the email made it very clear that while I was protected on the later flight, I was welcome to take the original one if I could make it (which I did, in both cases).

So maybe some of this policy shift has been going on behind the scenes for a while?

Yup, and the Helpdesk continues to be inconsistent.

I had another one today, a shortie IAD-XXX that was cancelled, and there was no reasonable alternative today on UA or OALs. I said I'll drive, delete IAD-XXX and XXX-IAD on the return, I'll rent a car and pick up the return also at IAD. Autorebook put in protection in a couple days, which was after my return. :D

Two club agents were helping, first call they made they were told to FIM me for the return, which sounded ridiculous since there was already a valid ticket, I just needed a couple segments deleted. Second call got the same FIM answer, so they started looking for FIMs and were told to direct me to CS. We continued to question this direction, so third call resulted in a Helpdesk agent able to cancel the two segments, but the ticket was still out of whack. Fourth call fixed the ticket.

So six (6) hands touched this thing, and 30 minutes to delete two segments on a cancellation.

All co-workers were willing and able to work with me. The real challenge was getting the system to do what we wanted.

I had it happen on 12/28. UX Flight from DLH to ORD was cancelled, they re-booked me on DL. No alert that the flight had been cancelled. The problem was when I went to the UA counter the PNR had been moved over and they couldn't find the original return flights. When I went to the DL counter they wouldn't accept the new PNR saying it was invalid. I had to spend about an hour on the phone as they manipulated the ticket so that it could be used against the DL flights. Finally with the UA 1K lady on the phone she worked with the DL counter to get the ticket # applied to the flights.

Back in November (as a 1K) I was on a flight from GVA-EWR (3 class 763) connecting in Newark and my flight from Europe was delayed 2 hours. I had 3 hours connecting time, and when I landed I had a text message saying I was protected on a flight several hours later. I RAN through the airport and made my original flight (they even held my F seat). But it is definitely POSSIBLE for UA to proactively take care of these issues, even keeping an original reservation AND providing protection on another flight, which some have said is not even possible now.

Those are just the options available to third party travel agents without any consent from United at all. (Except on the first point, JV partners are prioritized but all *A airlines are available.) United generally wants passengers handling misconnects directly with them, so standard misconnects aren't covered. United agents have much more latitude than third party travel agents.

Does UA* mean codeshare? Or is it strictly UAX. If UA* means codeshare than does that mean rebooking can be done on a CA flight on a UA code before a NH flight on a NH code?

Experiencing first IRROPS of 2013 right now at EWR (surprise surprise). Flight originally delayed 30 minutes, then 2 hours, eventually canceled. Went right to UC counter, asked to be put on Amtrak, after a few minutes I was all set. She didn't question me once. I know that pmCO utilized Amtrak a lot in the NEC so this is good that it's continuing.

It took over 30 minutes at the ORD United Club C Concourse to delete a delayed ORD-JAC-ORD turn so that I could return to my origin (IAD) on my original flight.

Several calls to the help desk, and also to the "front desk" - I think someone from the ticket counters came back to help? The agent was very helpful and willing to make the change, but also clearly very flustered that she did not know how to process it. (It's hard to believe we are coming up on a year since the 3/3/2012 move to Shares!)

I ended up with a paper ticket, which of course was not synched up to the reservation, and resulted in more confusion and scrambling when boarding.

This post is proof of the over-dramatization UA elites have that there is a war against elites (guilty myself at times). Even if the agents would not re-book you and force you into higher inventory, you can still stand by for the earlier flight and seats would not go out empty with 1K's waiting for the next flight due to IRROPS. Let's be reasonable with our comments, we have all had some crazy bad service but some of these posts make no sense.

Upgrades - whats the big deal ? 1K's still get 96 hour window and most upgrade over 75% of the time on most routes (how terrible of United to give us all those upgrades)
Valuation of MP - UA miles in general are far easier to use than other US legacy carriers. I booked a one way 12,500 award for coach the day before New Years to go to NYC when all other airlines were 25,000 miles or $900. Then they even upgraded me since I have the credit card.
We need to be greatful, many have learned the grass is not greener at Delta, AA and US. Airlines are trying hard to find balance between keeping loyal fliers happy and maintaining what services and perks they can while making the attempt to turn a profit!

I don't understand anything you have written.

1. It is has been documented here that agents have refused to rebook during IRROPS unless alternate flight had space available in same or lower fare class. This is unacceptable, and I feel that being dramatic about it is, in fact, appropriate. When you spend this much time, and this much money, on an airline, and they fail to deliver what was promised, and they won't even make it right using methods that are simple, and that cost them nothing - this is serious, and it is a war. Nothing can explain this policy other than outright and absolute hostility towards customers. It's almost like the person who wrote this policy actually wanted to make us angry. And, that's probably why they have started posting security guards at the desks to protect staff during irrops. This is dramatic. This is the worst behavior I have ever seen from an airline. Ever.

2. You said: "most upgrade over 75% of the time on most routes" - do you have any factual basis for this statement? Or, did you just make it up?

Thanks for posting this, SFOFastAir.

I'm sure questioning if the agent is up to date with company policy will go over really well next time I'm being dis-serviced at EWR.

Can you say if they reinforce/reiterate/emphasize CoC Rule 25 (A) (3) (b)? Or is DB not considered IRROPS?

RULE 25 DENIED BOARDING COMPENSATION
A) Denied Boarding (U.S.A./Canadian Flight Origin) - When there is an Oversold UA flight that originates in the U.S.A. or Canada, the following provisions apply:
3) Transportation for Passengers Denied Boarding - When UA is unable to provide previously confirmed space due to an Oversold flight, UA will provide transportation to such Passengers who have been denied boarding whether voluntarily or involuntarily in accordance with the provisions below.
a) UA will transport the Passenger on its own flight to the Destination without Stopover on its next flight on which space is available at no additional cost to the Passenger, regardless of class of service.
b) If space is available on another Carrier’s flight regardless of class of service, such flights may be used upon Passenger’s request and at no additional cost to the Passenger only if such flight provides an earlier arrival than the UA flight offered in 3) a) above.
(emphasis mine)

In my experience this has been the most difficult provision to get agents to comply with.