star_world

Incorrect. SHARES most definitely can move a ticket to a new PNR, while retaining the original ticket number. Moving multiple tickets to a new PNR is also possible.

Hint: this is exactly what happens when you separate traveller(s) in a PNR. Ticket number doesn't change, it gets moved to a new PNR.

FriendlySkies

Far from it, unfortunately.

star_world

What do you believe would happen today in the circumstances described in that post? They would be put on the next flight without any issue. In fact, there are actually more options available now due to the SDC policy, which is vastly improved from the time period described in the post. The OP could confirm themselves on a later flight in advance and just show up at the airport in time for the new flight, with a seat already assigned and on the upgrade list.

Plenty of things are worse than they were 5-6 years ago but this doesn't appear to be one of them.

FriendlySkies

Yes, SDC is a useful tool. However, I was referring to the part about smiling staff that would assist with whatever the situation was. While there are still some agents that will assist, the majority of situations I and many others here on FT have experienced seem to indicate otherwise.

zrs70

Op here. I actually have found agents really want to help. And they are usually very pleasant. But I don't believe an agent would be allowed to do what I wrote about.

star_world

There's a good argument to be made that they shouldn't be able to resolve it that way. Solve it yes, but by just creating a new reservation.

Luckily (if that's the right word) UA's current systems mean that this particular type of irregularity that you encountered 11 years ago is far less likely.

FlyingNone

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I was primarily referring to employees but, again, I am not saying people over or under a certain age act only one way good or bad or that all people are the same. SHARES is a different kettle of fish (versus FASTAIR) and has limited us in many ways (formats and the time to do entries).
At this point it seems so far in the past (since March 2012) that we can only move forward and work with it best we can. I don't compare SHARES with FASTAIR anymore, it is an effort in futility. I can only tell you that ability to make decisions about specific passengers' problems go hand in hand with the tool(s) we have, and it's not only the computer, it's internal departments we have to call. Translation....I can make a decision in my head, I know what to do, but I sometimes still need to call a "Help" desk to walk me through a SHARES format to do it. Sometimes I will get a "can't do that" response, so I do what you guys do, I hang up and call again.

I, personally, am someone who will stay with the problem unless we have run out of time or there is no other alternate. The other day I needed to do a through bag tag UA to UA flights but separate PNRs. This has not yet been fixed. First Help Desk agent said it can't be done. Hung up, called again. Second agent said it can't be done. Hung up called again. Third agent said "well there is a way to do it but you have to call XYZ department and have them do XYZ but really, the passenger shouldn't have booked it that way in the first place".
Really ?? Now I was out of time so the passenger had to go through security with his bag because he certainly had no time to pick it up at the "connecting" point. I WAS THINKING OUT OF THE BOX BUT NO ONE WOULD SHOW ME HOW TO GET OUT OF THE BOX (or maze in this case as the agent was directing me to make yet another phone call to get this done).
My point is that agents have to a) want to go through these multi-steps and b) have enough time to do it and c) some agents truly don't think there is a way out of the box = genuinely ignorant of what to do (and I don't say that in a bad way).

Let me be clear, that I don't feel this is United specific. The buck was passed the other day when I caught a $3.44 overcharge at the supermarket for a one dollar deli-pickle. Three store employees later x 3 and questions/answers x 3 and I ended up with a free pickle. It took a while but I guess someone finally cared to fix the problem. I stayed with it and they stayed with it.

Syzygies

In 1998, I had to make a five day trip JFK to Osaka, during a stressful period of the year. I had bought a discount coach ticket. I had the miles to upgrade outbound full coach, and with the miles earned on that leg, I would have the miles to upgrade return full coach. I was willing to change my ticket to full coach (a $1500 difference) if United would front me the miles and lock in the return upgrade while it was available. No con intended, a simple up/down business proposition if they were interested and had the flexibility.

I was affirming to my phone agent how calming she was in a stressful period for me. She responded by explaining there were three things she couldn't do; anything else was possible. (Imagine a matronly voice; that wasn't on the table. And I don't remember the list.) She set this up for me.

At the airport, I spend twenty minutes trying to convince the check-in agent to accept my money to increase my fare to full coach. My concern was that if I failed to do so, I'd lose my return upgrade by not keeping my end of the bargain. No luck; my discount coach ticket was upgraded both ways at the full coach rate, with the necessary miles advanced to my account.

Nice! Ah, those were the days.

iquitos

Did the LAX-BAH mileage run last weekend. As you may know the flight on Saturday night IAD-BAH was cancelled due to a mouse on board. We were all seated and had already looked at our menus and ordered out meals and the aircraft had pulled away freom the gate. I was in C on a Global upgrade instrument. After a long delay we were told the flight would not go deboarded and told to wait for an announcement in the gate area. There we were told the flight would go the next day at 3:45 but only as far as Kuwait and to leave our bags (I had none). Hotel would be provided. Some were sent to customer service and the elites were handled at the gate. Lots of military on the flight. I live in Washington so I went home and tried to work out the reacommodation on the phone. The first operator made a royal mess of my reservation. She had me going back to LAX before I got back from BAH. Eventually it was decided the flight would go to KWI and BAH and KWI Sunday night as an extra section at the same time as the night before. I could not check in online and my res looked funny in the system. At the airport I went to the kiosk and it could not help either. My seats were torn asunder too and my upgrade paid with a CPU was in peril. The F and C cabin showed sold out even though they were still selling space on the Untied website. I went over to the First Class counter and got help from a real United employee who had to call the help desk to find out how to print my boarding pass. There was some coding error in my res. She finally printed it. I went to the gate to work on the upgrade. I reported in, was apparently on the upgrade list and they said they would get back to me. I waited until almost everyone was boarded and they were working the stragglers. It was past departure time and they were still not able to get a straight passenger count and were still working off the upgrades. The agent finally called me. She took my boarding pass and scribbled a C seat number on it and said get on the plane, we will work out your ticket later. Three people were working the flight plus two IT guys standing over their shoulders. My agent was on the phone with the help desk the whole time. I boarded and took my C seat. It took them a while to get the count right on the plane and it was pretty chaotic. They finally closed the door 45 minutes late and we were off. After an uneventful flight to KWI I started working on my return upgrade for which I had already paid miles and money. That was not in the system either at KWI but they finally fixed that with some help desk calls and human intervention and issued boarding a for the DOH IAD flight. Further adjustments had to be made in BAH for my IAD LAX flight for which no seats were assigned. It all worked out. Long story short I had the feeling a lot of agent empowerment was going on all the way. It was messy but the people made the calls that made my trip a pleasant one.

Starblazer

You didn't see the button in CheckIt that lets you interline a bag? Additionally, there is a way to do it in SHARES. Typically, I add it to the itinerary(no syncing), save, and then reprint the bag. After the tag is good, I go back and clean the itin back up. I know there's a different way (the official way to do it) but I keep forgetting it and that's how I remember how to do it. A word of warning, watch out for MCTs. If the connection violates MCT (which could by why they didn't book it in one), interline it but vol-sep the bag so that your station doesn't take a MBR hit.

FlyingNone

====================

Thanks, I appreciate the tips but I believe CheckIt (fill-in) only works UA to offline other airline ?....seems I have tried it and get error responses....too convoluted and I end up going back to SHARES.

And yes, I know adding the segment to the downline PNR in SHARES is supposed to work but if the segment is not actually available for sale I have to call the "overbook" desk to do it. In other words, adding the origin segment to the downline segment PNR, adding the bag tag entry, cleaning up the PNR, etc. because if I don't clean it up and leave the "sold" segment in the PNR it will cancel the downline as a no-show.

To reiterate ..............This is WAY TOO MANY STEPS just to issue a bag tag, don't you think, especially if you have only a few minutes to do it and multiple passengers on separate PNRs ? I'm toggling between PNRs, I'm selling the rogue segment into one of the two PNRs (if available). If not available I have to make a phone call and have them make it available (after the question and answer routine - why/how ?). I then issue the bag tag, have to go back into the PNR, remove the "added" segment so problems don't ensue downline.

I forgot to add that if the name is different from one PNR to the next PNR, ie, John Smith on one and John Andrew Smith on the other, it will now involve a name correction on one PNR or the other - to match.

I almost threw in the towel and quit United the first time I had to do this because it involved a family of five, on five SEPARATE PNRS, one of the names was spelled differently versus the other PNR. They were traveling internationally and there was not a lot of time to do this. I finally had to call the Help Desk, get a Supervisor who patched in a third agent (conference type call) and we all did it simultaneously. It was a horrible experience but had to be done because there was no way these passengers had time to retrieve and recheck their bags in Houston. And why would we want to put anyone through that in the first place? All the while the passengers see the frenzy and become frantic that a) we don't have enough time and b) we will lose their bags.

So, please, with all due respect, don't make this sound like an easy task....it is not. But back to the thread title -- this is an example of why agents will not even think of thinking out of the box.

TPJ

To be fair, the other day I flew DFW-ORD-MUC with a 45 minute connection at ORD. DFW-ORD (yep - regional ERJ) was about 40 minutes late (no explanation/information/update/apologies etc. were provided onboard - I love these regionals). I reached the MUC gate some 5 minutes after the scheduled departure time and asked the GA if I would have any chance to board as the aircraft was still at the gate. To my surprise the GA said that there were still the maintenance folks onboard as IFE failed, so he would have a word with the captain, if he would be OK to accommodate me. Within 2 minutes I was given a new seat (in E+) and boarded the aircraft.

To my surprise my baggage reached the final destination (WAW) even before me, as they put it on a LH flight to FRA and on to WAW on a LO flight that was arriving before my flight from MUC. I was met at the gate by the handling agent Rep and informed that they have my bags.

Honestly - I was EXTREMELY impressed with UA and Star Alliance...

IAH-OIL-TRASH

The older you are, the farther back the "golden age" is.

My "golden age" was a being a kid on a "modern" United Air Lines jet in 1960 from LAX to HNL (still remember the STEWARDESS handing me my metal pilot wings). Stepped out of the plane onto the top of the airstairs and saw a bunch of relatives who didn't have to go thru security at the gate waiting for me with leis. The sheer joy of travel has been downhill since.