sbm12

I was on hold for ~60 minutes earlier this afternoon before I dropped the call by accident. Called again and it was answered in <2 minutes. If I had to guess I'd say that there's something messed up in the queuing system based on those numbers.

mduell

The flight she was eventually put on may have been full when she called earlier. Available capacity is constantly in flux as cancellations and rebookings occur.

appenz

Update: Had to call them again as my itinerary suddenly was marked un-ticketed. This time spoke to a representative in under 10 minutes (Premier line, platinum status). It seems to get better.

Flyz

I'm Gold and I've now been on hold on the Premier line for 144 minutes. This is after umpteen other tries. I wish I knew the secret.

One thing that troubles me is that I've been crazily auto-rebooked. There are three segments to my flight. My auto-rebooking has me going on segment 2 (only) on Monday. Then it has me going on segments 2 and 3 on Thursday. Segment 1 is not in view. When I don't show up for segment 2 on Monday, is my whole ticket going to be cancelled or something? I've spent 80% of today being on hold. What happens if I don't get to talk to a real person before the auto-rebooked flight leaves?

halls120

I realize that. My point was that without her insisting at the airport that she be put on one of the IAH-DEN-MCI flights that was open on Friday, she would have been left with a delay that wasn't necessary, because there were flights open on Friday.

mduell

Unless they've suspended the auto-cancellation policy for missed segments, expect your reservation to be cancelled when you miss a segment.

Flyz

Is there any way to deal with this without going through an agent? When I look at my wonky auto-rebook, I click on "Change Flights" and I get "united.com is unable to initiate your flight change request at this time. Please contact United Reservations at 1-800-UNITED1 to make changes to this Itinerary." I see that there are spaces on flights to my destination on Tuesday. Can I get my booking switched to those flights somehow? This is infuriating. And I've just been cut off after another 3 hours on hold on the Premier line.

awc4

They were so much more helpful at the airport. The agent guided me to the supervisor at YVR and he took care of my flight cancellation in about 15 seconds, although it seems like it needs to be handled by some corporate group, as he handed me a slip of paper that said "refund requested". It sounds like PMCO requires another step in the process (by corporate?)

edcho

Try rechecking in and see if it offers you any options (or one of the self service kiosks). If not, then you have to wait...

milesmilesmiles

At 3:30AM EST today, received EWR-ATL cancellation. Was auto-rebooked on Thursday EWR-ORD-ATL

Got on phone at 3:45AM and after 4 hour, 30 minute, and 15 second hold with "Premier" Line, agent answered and booked me direct on Monday (dreaded UAX though).

While on hold, managed to snag via UA website a OW US EWR-CLT-ATL saver award ticket for today. Now in ATL after smooth flights.

Called "Premier" line again, and after 60 minute hold cancelled the Monday rebook and got $200 refunded for the return portion of the original ticket.

Guess this lowly Sliver did OK. Did not want to chance tomorrow on RJ with weather still not great.

Kmxu

only 45 min waiting on premier line this morning (~9:30 EST). Was told for 30 min waiting. Had to cancel an award tkt for my son.

kmfdm91

Wow - after reading all these, it makes me mad and happy all at the same time (more on that later)...

I wasn't even going to post this on FT, but this thread made me do it - Sorry for the long post (or skip to the end):

My wife & I (and infant daughter) took a end-of-year trip to Florida - outbound on UA, return on US. DCA-EWR-PBI//TPA-DCA.

Outbound, we were stuck on the tarmac in barbiejet (E145) for 2 hours in the penalty box, because we couldn't get clearance from EWR (this was only rain, on 29-Dec), then at EWR, our flight (which we made, naturally from booking an exceptionally long connection and not the UA-suggested 30 minute [I don't understand how that is within MCT rules at EWR[ connection) to PBI was ~2 hours late and after we made it into PBI with our infant daughter at ~01:00AM, our bags (including her pack&play) did NOT make the flight, despite plenty of time at EWR. Following day, bags show up at ~10AM, but baggage handlers (I know, an outsourced company - not COdbaUA) said they wouldn't deliver it to us until 8PM - so we were pretty much forced to drive back to PBI to retrieve said bags.

So, we enjoyed our holiday in Florida and on the return trip - getting ready to leave at ~6PM and got a personal call saying our US flight was cancelled - I didn't answer it, but listened to the voice mail. Okay, not so good...let me see what they rebooked us on. Our original flight was 04 Jan and the rebooked flight was for 06 Jan - two days later! So, I did some searching, came up with nothing...then about 30 minutes later, found two seats available on a flight from TPA-DCA (our scheduled city pair), but for 4PM instead of our 6AM flight...same day, and only in F (we were booked in Y).

Called US Air MAIN line (I'm no status, and my wife has no status with US). Phone went STRAIGHT to a US rep (sounded like the South, somewhere) with an a great agent - who fixed my wife's ticket, added the infant to HER record [she was great and talked about how she wanted to get my wife's record straight before mine...which I agreed to], then fixed my record. Confirmed both records were the same, and assigned us two F seats, next to each other. Total Time...and I was SUPER impressed with the service, the attitude and the efficiency - 12Minutes24seconds. Perhaps the best part of the phone call was when the agent made fun of United about how our records were split, because they cannot handle having more than one person on an Itin...^ ^ ^

We made it back to Reagan just fine last night and our experience with US IRROPS was hands down, a thousand times better than our last experience (last month) with UA IRROPS as a 1K and Plat.

So, I'm horribly mad to say that this is the new 'norm' for pretty much anything at UA, but especially IRROPS...but I'm happy to be leaving UA for greener pastures and of course, becoming a kayaker or testing the waters at some other airlines - i've had great IRROPS experiences at DL this year as well.

To hammer it home further, I had on UA as a 1K and Plat [wife]:

• DCA-EWR delayed ~2.5 hours for rain, because of the barbiejet and instead of mainline service
• EWR-PBI delayed ~2 hours and no bags on arrival, despite ~3 hours on ground at EWR
• Bags that would be delivered ~12 hours after they arrived at the airport - basically saying to get them ourselves

And at US as a nobody (both of us):

• Cancelled flight - originally rebooked for two days later
• 12 Minute call to get two records fixed and rebooked in Full F to the general USAir phone number
• On-time arrival (actually, early) with all four of our bags of the belt in ~15 minutes

Awful service everyone is getting from UA, and i'll be done with them very soon :-) Perhaps a good New Year's Resolution that COdbaUA wants to remind all of us of!

-jeremy

hobo13

Precisely.

And that was my original issue for starting this thread. I can tolerate a long hold, maybe even measured in HOURS -- I have a speakerphone and / or a headset. But what I can't tolerate is a busy signal. And that's what I was getting yesterday, repeatedly, as a 1K. Sometimes it couldn't even validate my MP number. Sometimes it would go to busy. Sometimes it would give me some message about the system (can't remember).

The point is that it seems there is more going on here than just high call volume.

ruechalgrin

Global Services member. I could not get through with messages that the system was busy or I was hung-up on (finally got through).

stanscan

I am ua Gold in Sao Paulo: working to change a flight through PHL in two days. I gave up earlier this evening after 2.5 hours waiting (gotta have a life, ya know). Now it is 2:54 AM here Monday morning (11;54 pm EST Sunday evening) and I have been waiting on two lines for one hour and 45 minutes. Will they ever pick-up or am I stuck on hold forever?