Change Flight option is getting worse and worse
 

Has anyone else noticed that changing an itinerary online keeps getting worse. For example,

- Trying to change DEN-SFO-SIN to a different date. It will not give me an option of going through San Francisco, even though there are tons of cheap DEN-SFO flights the day I'm trying to change to.

- Trying to change a refundable M fare to an A fare on a different flight. It appears to try and block you from doing this if the A fare is less than the M fare. I know some bean counter probably thinks they can sell lots of coach tickets to people like me for less than first, but this makes for very unhappy GS members.

I think someone at United as gone bat-crazy creating new rules that are used by the software to control changes. This means I now have to cal United 50 times a year more than I did in past years to make the changes.

Maybe I am reading more into this than I should be and Shares is just unable to deal with flight changes well.

Funny, just ran into this. I had to call 1K to get any reasonable routing. The options shown were very, very limited and not at all the best ones.

Well, you're flying 1) a connecting flight; and 2) internationally. United's systems are simply not optimized for this type of travel pattern.

The "change flight" option has been horrendous for a long time in terms of offering the least expensive or otherwise most optimal routings. Probably my second biggest united.com complaint after phantom award inventory.

Nowadays if "change flight" actually lets me change and doesn't give me the "please call 1800UNITED1" line, I consider it a minor miracle

I would like to see the Change Flights option observe the GG BUYUP profile and allow me to pay the fare difference to the lowest available first class fare without charging me a $200 change fee. (Even when I call, it's a coin toss as to whether the agent will waive the fee.)

Have given up on the app based change flight, whether domestic or international it sucks. I am just another flyer tying up a phone agent trying to change my flights to my options not United's limited options!

It's not getting worse. It's just always been bad. I think a lot of this has to do with the algorithms it uses to rank the flight options it shows, and sometimes valid desirable options are ranked off the end of the list of what gets displayed.

Unless something has changed very recently, there is no change flights functionality on the Android or iOS United apps other than Same-Day Change.

Here's the thing… It's also pretty bad if you call United to change an existing flight. Most often, they will quote you exactly what we see online when we try to change s record. But if we know that a lower fare exists, or that a certain fare bucket is available ( because we have made a dummy reservation), we have to ask the agent to build a new record without making mention of the existing record.

They will quote us the fare… The same fare that United.com shows with the dummy booking. Then, we ask them to apply the old record. The agent will tell us they have to do it the other way around. But then they will say, "Oh, that's interesting. I wondering why it won't offer the same fare when i do it this way?"

The agent will then put you on hold to consult with the rate desk. In the end, it will work out.

I agree with OP that the "Change flight" functionality has gotten worse. Even on simple roundtrips between EWR and LAX it seems to disregard a lot of 'search preferences', prices are more expensive than if you made a new booking (even with or without change fees) and in terms of searching if upgrades are available that option is downright dishonest. Looking at expert mode I often see PN7 only to ticket the flight and upgrade via certificate not viable. Call GS desk and they say nothing available and unless you happen to 30 minutes to fight it out with the web res people it's just a big pain. The question that begs is what is the point of a website that makes it so necessary so often to have to call up an agent. I mean they are all very nice but doesn't United have to keep on more staff than necessary to help people with their site. I don't really fly any other airlines so it is tough to judge - I know UA.com has some great features. I was flummoxed when I tried to use my Amex miles on the ANA site. But changing a flight is still very glitchy year after year after year on United.com - so not optimistic that things will get better...

Sometimes! I experienced this situation last week on a reservation LAX-BRU...my meeting changed so I tried to change dates...lots of space available in the same fare bucket...the agent was unable to change the reservation...it took her almost 20 minutes to see what I was seeing...her reaction was "I wonder why I can't access that?" and then another 20 minutes waiting for the rate desk to decide they could not help me. At this point, I went to bed...the next morning I called the client and had them change my ticket to DL...the fare had come down since I originally was booked on the cheaper UA flight.

Lesson learned...I keep trying to give UA a new chance, and they keep driving me to the competition!

Yes, exactly.

The online "Change Flights" function has been broken for some time.

It has become even less functional since they updated the website.

I just talked to an agent who told me the United.com fares are not available to her. I was looking at a flight that was A2 and she was insisting it was A0. After a 30 minute wait while she talked to IT, she came back and said that the her system doesn't show exactly what United.com shows.

On the original post on change flight, I tried something different today. I changed the "results" to 50 and it didn't just return more results, it searched more flight options and did give me the DEN-SFO-SIN flight.

Well, it seems the seat reservations are back showing on the "view current reservation" page. ^