No E+ at Booking for Platinum?
 

New travel policy so we're down to Economy Plus to save some money. No biggie really, but I just booked an itinerary and trying to select an economy plus seat on the 787 back from Heathrow and UA.com won't let me do it despite being Premier Platinum.

What gives? E+ at booking is one of the listed benefits . . .

Sometimes the website has trouble assigning seats. You should try 1) signing off and then back in, 2) using the mobile app, or 3) calling UA.

Called UA and found the problem. Despite the itinerary from me TA having my name spelled correctly, someone in their office must have booked my flights with my name spelled incorrectly. Though they some how pseudo attached my MP number, when I called the MP help line it didn't pull up at all.

TA is sorting it out, just weird that they could actually get it linked to my MP with an incorrect name spelling and it wasn't flagged.

This shows two of the many reasons I dislike using TAs:

1. It's an additional layer of opportunity for manual mistakes to be made.

2. The printed "confirmation" from the TA is not authoritative. When you book yourself on an airline, car rental, or hotel site and get a written confirmation (via email or screenshot), it's certain to match what's actually in the provider's computer. A TA's "confirmation" is often just something that someone manually keyed in and printed out. Even if it has provider confirmation numbers, there's no way to know for sure that details such as traveler name, smoking preference, etc. are actually in the provider's system as they are stated on the TA confirmation.

Correct. Every time I'm forced to use a TA I immediately go into my record on the airline site and typically find multiple errors in the booking (FF number not present being the most common, followed by the worst seat on the plane despite my status).

You must be using one incompetent travel agency. I've never had an issue with my corporate travel agency, nor with the travel agency I've used a few times for personal travel. My MIL also often uses an agency to book her travel and does not have those issues with any level of frequency.

I had several issues with my corporate agency over the years I used them, generally in terms of not putting my MP # in correctly or in booking "direct" flights instead of connections (made upgrading harder). YMMV.

Everytime I book with a TA, usually its just OTAs if its not direct with the airline/hotel, I always immediately go on the airline/hotel site to view the details, and also get the confirmation emailed to me. Would rather make sure everythings in line myself then, say, find out I can't check in because someone else typo'd my name or birthdate.

It would seem to depend on how you interact with your TA. On my end, I can either book travel through the TA site directly, or my admin does it all. I don't ever just send an email or request to the TA to book travel.

When I was a gov't subcontractor, we were required to use their TA, but I could specify exact flights/times and hotels. In these cases, I agree with you that they did often not include my loyalty account information, but the travel details were otherwise correct. I always did make it a habit to go in and select seats after booking. Even now, our system doesn't allow us to book bulkhead/exit row seats, even if they're available, so I always check anyway.

hit the nail on the head!^

OK, actually I take it back. After my admin dealt with both the TA and United, UA fessed up that the issue is in their system. My biggest concern went from miles and status to ensuring my BP would be correct due to multiple border crossings, etc.

Somehow my name is spelled differently in two places on my reservation. UA confirms it came over from the TA correctly and they say it will show up on my BP correctly for TSA purposes, they aren't sure how it got messed up in their system, and they don't seem too keen to fix it either. Premier line lady couldn't wait to bounce me off the line either . . .

UA [in]competence . . . "flyer" friendly.

Just had my TA book me PHX-MEL return. At first I had the wrong confirmation number so I call MPSC and got that sorted out. Then I was able to pick my seats for all of my flights except return ex-MEL. It looks like most E+ seats are open but I can't select any of them only E-. I've tried logging out and back in and tried the mobile app. Is there something else I should try before calling MPSC again?

Name not matching UA MP name?

It matches. The thing that I find weird is that I am able to select seats on all my other flights. PHX-LAX, LAX-SYD, SYD-MEL and LAX-PHX. That's why I find it strange that I can't pick the return.

Is your return the same flight number on two of the segments?