mre5765

.

I suspect it comes down to experience. Fly out of a station lots, and you will get burned. And SFO burns. The most recent whopper IME was in December at the UC: "we don't have a first class lounge"


Indeed, 100 percent of WN's customers have no seat assignments.

mherdeg

Some of this is sensitivity to problems & expectations. A colleague seems to have TERRIBLE problems with Google products — (1) Chat always sends messages to his phone, his friends, his laptop, or his message logs, but never all four; (2) Maps puts his house in the middle of a bridge and when he reports the problem he gets a human response saying "this is correct according to our data and we are not changing it"; (3) Chrome chews up all his RAM and kills the rest of his machine.

This isn't Google being out to get him — he just notices minor quirks and he tends to be a software power user and do the kinds of things with systems that tend to make them break.

Some of the people who have "bad luck" are just doing a LOT of transactions and, since there's some variation in how good your experience will be in each transaction, they're more likely to see the bad as well as the very good.

spin88

I have had a stack of bad experiences (even as GS) but they are better now as to what I would call "random bad acts." (rather than the system wide things like bad food, upsells, etc). Everyone I have spoken with here in San Francisco (or elsewhere) who travels a lot has a UA post 3/3 story, most have many, and no one I have talked to is happy. That said, my travel is domestic, and I think the mess ups/problems are greater on the domestic side than international. If you travel internationally (especially if on paid Z/C) you may be less exposed.

that was different. The pilots were doing a sick out, and flights cancelled. But if they went the system worked.

mike_plat

I'm not happy with it either, but mostly because they've managed to destroy what I liked about CO without improving what I didn't like about CO. I think this is what any HBS case would have said would happen when a smaller company takes over a larger one. See my statement further down for my take on sUA.


The result isn't different. The airport agents were overwhelmed and took it out on the customers. Really ugly, and to this day, forms my memory of sUA.

sfogate

You look for volunteers. If no one will give up their seats in Y, then yes the OP would have become an IDB.

Under Shares, any computer, anywhere can be made into a controlling set. This means that I, working the lobby in HNL, can make my set a controlling set for a flight departing from SFO.

Once a certain function command is typed from a controlling set, it locks out all other sets from performing any function relating to that flight, except from the other controlling sets. This is done at the 30 minute mark, before departure, and gives the gate agent complete control of the flight.

SFOFastAir

The lack of bar code I think is/was technical malfunction of the printer. I know yesterday there were a few printers in the Premium lobby there had lost some of the print formatting software. Since this was pretty early in the morning the folks working the counter may not have been aware if the problem.

Mitchmu, sorry for your bad experience at SFO.

unavaca

Thanks for clarifying! I didn't know that anyone anywhere could become a controlling set. Can you enter and exit controlling set mode at any time, or once you become one, you are one until departure?

luv2ctheworld

This sounds like a conflux of issues (from UA side as well as the airport) that came together and went FUBAR on the OP...

FlyingNut724

And that, to sum it up, is the problem with the New United. I don't think any other carrier on earth would IDB a paid first class customer (especially someone with an international connection) over someone in coach.

unavaca

How is this different than the "old" United? Pax without seat assignments are the first to be IDB'd. In the old UA, if you couldn't accommodate a pax without a seat in either F or Y and you can't get any volunteers to give up their seat, then that person is IDB'd. This isn't new

FlyingNut724

That was not my experience with the old UA. I recall at least two occasions where I or a colleague were in paid F with no seat assignment and they bumped someone out of coach. Also the old UA had a policy for 1Ks that even if the plane was oversold you could buy a Y class ticket and have someone bumped.

zitsky

This sounds just a little bit like what happened to me flying back from LIM-IAH in BusinessFirst. At the check in counter I was told that my ticket was for the next day and my partners was for the same day. Both tickets were booked together and I booked them for the correct day. It took 20-30 minutes to get that straightened out. I got no apology, just that "reservations" made a mistake. Really?

matkusopet

Wow. Just wow. So sorry to read this, Mitchmu.

It would appear, though, that my brother, sister, and I will possibly be headed for trouble, if one were to consider OP's experience, along with the chorus of related issues, including award partner flights, SHARES, and just plain incompetence of on-the-ground and call center staff. OP did everything right -- everything reasonably expected of travelers concerned about the integrity of their flights:

1. Monitoring ticketed itineraries,
2. Printing copies of said itineraries,
3. Attempting OLCI,
4. Not rolling over,

and last (but certainly not least)

5. Being an informed traveler unwilling to take no (or whatever story the agent concocts in the moment) for an answer.

My concerns reflect the issues enumerated above and the confluence of what seem to be multiplying points of entry for UA trouble. While OP's experience certainly underscores my resolve to not let this happen to my family and me, (I've booked my brother and sister [kettles, alas] business class tix to SGN from HNL and ORF, respectively, on OZ...ack!), I'm concerned that we're headed for trouble. I've coached them through it all (or so I thought), but, since none of our flights are coordinated, what happens if I'm not around to help them? Or if they're stuck at ICN or SGN with nothing but a photocopy of their itinerary and their credit cards? I thought I'd anticipated everything, and I'm certainly not as informed a traveler as OP, so this throws another wrench in my elaborate avoid-problems-because-I-booked-you-with-UA battle plan. Ugh.

So, is it all just a crapshoot? Kiss the dice and roll?

Thanks for a very informative thread, FTers!

PS I won't even mention my upcoming JFK-PTY-MVD flight, whose itinerary looks completely out of sorts. Calling. Has. Not. Worked.

sfogate

Yes, you can enter and exit controlling set mode at any time until the gate agent takes (restricts) control of the flight. Once this happens, you can only exit control.

An SU sine can overide this control and are given to the supervisors and Red Coats/Service Directors.

ufo

Hi SFO gate..... what happens in a cabin where everyone is on a paid F ticket, or you;ve downgraded all upgrades and you are still oversold. Is there an SOP to decide which paid F passengers to unseated?

Thanks, UFO

This was my experience earlier this year also. I was IDB from a TATL flight on a J fair. It was a downgauge from a 764 to a 762. I was seated in 1D and my seat was given to someone else.

I dont know who did it, and why. But 8+ hours after the equipment swap, and 5 hours before departure I was removed from my seat and it was given to someone else.

1D existed on both aircraft, I was a 1k with a paid J fare. While I got multiple apologies from people at UA, no one would ever explain to me why I was unseated from the flight.