My guess was booking engine was hitlist #1... they wanted to go live with that for whatever reasons ("Shoot the engineer", enhanced revenue opportunities, whatever).

So they've bit off, chewed, swallowed and half regurgitated the biggest/most visible piece of the equation now they have three options:

(1) Leave the website in the (visual) half old/half new thing that just looks unprofessional and sloppy
(2) Go back to the old design until the entirety of the new design is ready to launch... which could be forever and also eliminates options for mass sampling/bug finding (e.g. the award nonsense, searching by fare bucket, etc.) that may not have been noticed until a large population was in front of it either now or 6 months from now.
(3) Push forward with the new, reskin existing pages so that it doesn't look quite as hodgepodge/jarring and then incrementally replace them (based on relative traffic/page views if someone was smart) with new versions over the next several months.

I was never charged for a phone reservation or change when I was 1K, so I'm guessing it's waived.

As far as the $25, I'm fairly certain that's a standard procedure if you mention you couldn't do it on the website. I usually start the conversation that way, since I am one of those people who wouldn't call if it worked right on the website in the first place.

Everyone please be sure to preface each call with "I used to be able to do this on the web site but now it is not available, so need you to help me....".
They may need to re-establish the *A desk...

Hopefully, somehow but not likely, United will get some feedback that their CS cost is now going to take a bump up and their customer satisfaction a bump down with the web site changes.
Of course they will just spin/dismiss this as temporary adoption noise...

Yea, that's on me. I forget they are there and then half way through my search I realize I can filter out the results.

I forget if the old site did this but trying to book a flight using the flexible date calendar is deceiving. I searched for nonstop only, 4 nights, EWR-LAX, First. The calendar lists fares in the $500 range and you think you might have scored a cheap PS F fare. You click into the date and all nonstop fares are $800+, nothing in the $500 range is listed. If you unfilter nonstops you then see that the $500 fare was a connection.

Well, miraculously my moderately complicated booking went through on the first try. Noticed the welded-together appearance today. Not pretty, but hey, it worked! I am honestly astonished to not get any error messages or other mess, and was just sitting at my desk saying "amazing!". Might hafta change my FT handle to "gobsmacked".

I thought the policy was that if you could not perform a transaction via the website, you could call an agent and do it for free.

I just tried to book a multi city international trip.
Results are all garbage lists business class as not available on a bunch of legs even though the details show C9 J9.
Way to go UA

Is it showing A fares? If so, the A is cheaper than cheapest available BF fare so it incorrectly displays BF as "not available."

I have noticed that if I book a flight and the go to View Reservation and then Change Flights, the engine to change flights is the same as the old website. This might be a good method to check for additional flight options post-booking.

If you are within the 24-hour no-change-fee grace period you may be able to change to a flight that was not visible on the new site for free.

Booking a flight right now, site is sitting and spinning at "Please complete the information for each traveler"

https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fli...fo/default/rev

so I hit the back button and prompted for seat selection on the flight

.. and hit the back button and "document expired"

Except the "change flights" search function is horribly broken and cannot be relied on to return lowest available fare!

OK...YMMV.

Yes, you're right, worth checking, particularly if you're keeping the same origin, destination, and class of service. Change any of those, and the results are suspect.

... or really honor any preferences that you care about.

I was trying to change dates on a flexible/refundable ticket yesterday and after only being offered (what appeared to be) the lowest available [penalty] fares rather than the ticketed fare buckets... and no way to specify fare class (which I could have sworn used to be available in change flights, but I may be selectively remembering).

I eventually gave up and just canceled/refunded the original itinerary and booked an new one. I probably should have just called but honestly didn't feel like it.

And tomorrow you could get an entirely different list.