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Track My Bag - UA's bag tracking app

Old Sep 14, 2017, 2:36 pm
  #31  
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Originally Posted by villox
It's amazing how such a small piece of information, that your bag made your flight, will add so much more peace of mind.
Hmmm lets say you notice mid-flight that your bags are heading in the opposite direction, or as doors close you see that your bag is not loaded..
there is almost nothing you can do other than stressing out for hours... plus i bet there will be people freaking out and disrupting departure..
having a tracker probably doesnt improve actual bag handling percentages however if it includes directions on what to do in case of this ooops that should save some time on arrival...
i d make this info available only at or right before scheduled arrival time..
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Old Sep 14, 2017, 2:51 pm
  #32  
 
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Originally Posted by azepine00
Hmmm lets say you notice mid-flight that your bags are heading in the opposite direction, or as doors close you see that your bag is not loaded..
there is almost nothing you can do other than stressing out for hours... plus i bet there will be people freaking out and disrupting departure..
having a tracker probably doesnt improve actual bag handling percentages however if it includes directions on what to do in case of this ooops that should save some time on arrival...
i d make this info available only at or right before scheduled arrival time..
If you choose to stress, that's your problem.

Meanwhile, I'll be heading straight out of the airport rather than wasting a half hour waiting for a bag that won't show up.
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Old Sep 14, 2017, 3:00 pm
  #33  
 
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Originally Posted by azepine00
Hmmm lets say you notice mid-flight that your bags are heading in the opposite direction, or as doors close you see that your bag is not loaded..
there is almost nothing you can do other than stressing out for hours... plus i bet there will be people freaking out and disrupting departure..
having a tracker probably doesnt improve actual bag handling percentages however if it includes directions on what to do in case of this ooops that should save some time on arrival...
i d make this info available only at or right before scheduled arrival time..
I really can't believe how many people are arguing that they'd rather have less information than more. The other airlines have this already and I haven't heard of these supposed freakouts disrupting flights.

I ALWAYS want to have more information about my travel especially when it is disrupted. Same reason I always look at the inbound flight to anticipate whether there will be a delay. There's lots of examples I can come up with in which I could do something about it if I knew my bag didn't make the flight, especially in the modern world in which I generally have internet access on my flight.

- If the bag is on the next flight coming in an hour later, I might decide to stick around and wait. Perhaps I send a text message to my ride telling them to show up later
- I might look up where on the way from the airport to hotel I could stop off to do some shopping. Or if I'm visiting family ask them to do so for me. Heck in some places I could order same day delivery online and have it waiting for me at the hotel.
- I will mentally prepare to head straight to the baggage service office in case there is a problem filing a claim

I rarely check bags and even more rarely lose them when I do. But 100% of the time I do check bags I worry whether they've made the flight.
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Old Sep 14, 2017, 8:05 pm
  #34  
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it's about time! I noticed this yesterday but my first UA flight out of Asia isn't for a few weeks so I won't be able to test this until then.

For those who are panicking about what to do if you see your bag hasn't made it on the flight, don't panic. There's not a damn thing you can do about it on the plane. And you aren't going to take yourself off the flight because your bag didn't make it, are you?

I had this happen once within the past year or two and I was flying on DL. Yes, DL has had this functionality in their app for a while now. Their app tells you when it's scanned on and off a plane which is useful. Long story short, I figured out my bag didn't get checked onto the flight I already boarded. About halfway to my stopover point (ATL) the app showed my bags already re-routed and on a flight through another connecting city to my destination. Sure, they still arrived late. But they were getting there and I could see that data on the phone. So, no big deal.

-RM
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Old Sep 14, 2017, 8:31 pm
  #35  
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I'd much rather be informed in advance that my bag didn't make it than only find out after waiting all the way to "last bag" at the carousel. Not only did I just save 40 minutes of pointless waiting, good chance I'll beat the crowd to the baggage services office.
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Old Sep 20, 2017, 9:31 am
  #36  
 
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Originally Posted by rmadisonwi
Shortly after that, those kiosks disappeared. And now, some years later, the feature has returned, in app form.
One of my only post-merger (pre-integration) experiences with the old United was when I showed up in Orlando [IIRC] and my bag didn't. As I walked through the door to the baggage service office, before I could say anything the customer 'service' agent said "You gotta use the kiosk, I can't do nothin'" ... then lead me out of the baggage service office, punched in my details on a kiosk where the kiosk responded: "Please see a United Airlines representative for assistance" -- the two stared each other down for a good 45 seconds before she said "I...ugh....go see Continental." and went back to her stool.

(I detest kiosks being the only avenue for customer service so this rubbed me the wrong way)

Originally Posted by phltraveler
You know how it is at airports where United isn't the hub... it's always blank (or almost always) for the baggage carousel in the app.
Yep, incidentally, it's always populated for my connection (hub) but never for my actual destination. I asked at a baggage service office a while ago and was told that it was an "IT Issue" and they have no idea where that information comes from/how to get it to the app (though the first agent didn't even know it was in the app to begin with)

Originally Posted by azepine00
Hmmm lets say you notice mid-flight that your bags are heading in the opposite direction, or as doors close you see that your bag is not loaded..
there is almost nothing you can do other than stressing out for hours..
There's plenty I can do, for one not standing around wasting time at the belt for a bag I know will never come (MSP is awful for this -- priority bags are always the last out after an eternal wait and I'm at about a 20% miss rate) -- I can research options for interim clothing and/or look at the other flights to try to guess when my bag is likely to arrive. In one case, waiting the 40 minutes for a bag that never came meant that I just missed closing time for the local department stores (and as last flight of the night, my bag wouldn't be showing up until sometime the next morning); had I known that my bag wasn't coming, I would have hopped right in a car, done some quick shopping, and had fresh clothes for meeting my client the next day (instead of apologizing for showing up in jeans and slightly ruffled -- at least I'm on good terms with that client)

Originally Posted by Kacee
I'd much rather be informed in advance that my bag didn't make it than only find out after waiting all the way to "last bag" at the carousel. Not only did I just save 40 minutes of pointless waiting, good chance I'll beat the crowd to the baggage services office.
Yep. There have been some close connections/weather irrops were I'm finally getting "wherever" late at night, usually coming home, and my first stop has been the BSO to ask if I should bother waiting around (about 50/50) -- this way I can make that decision without bugging someone.
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Old Sep 20, 2017, 10:12 am
  #37  
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Originally Posted by villox
I really can't believe how many people are arguing that they'd rather have less information than more.
Exactly. If you don't want to know, don't check. But don't take away the option from those who care.
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Old Sep 20, 2017, 10:22 am
  #38  
 
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Does the app provide notifications? I probably check bags less than 10x a year, so I haven't had a chance to use the new functionality yet. I would appreciate limited notifications, such as:

- bag scanned on the airplane (including at connecting airport)
- bag mis/redirected
- bag scanned off the airplane at final destination.

This and boarding notifications are two 'wishes' I have for the UA app, which I believe is more functional than the DL app save for these two areas.
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Old Sep 20, 2017, 10:36 am
  #39  
 
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Overall I was unimpressed by this last week. It showed my bag being checked and loaded onto the plane. Then, upon arrival, the app deleted everything to do with the flight (boarding pass, the info in flight status, and knowledge of my checked bag).

You can retrieve the bag info after arrival by typing in or scanning the bag tag number, but the app never indicated my bag getting off the plane or put on the belt. I lost interest in testing after my bag came out the chute.
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Old Sep 20, 2017, 10:41 am
  #40  
 
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This is great I had been hoping they'd add this for a while, particularly given I've had some trips where my connections were quite tight and i wanted to know if my bags made the flight or not rather than sit in the airport for 45 minutes to find out they didn't.
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Old Sep 20, 2017, 11:04 am
  #41  
 
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Originally Posted by bmr12
Then, upon arrival, the app deleted everything to do with the flight (boarding pass, the info in flight status, and knowledge of my checked bag).
I have noticed this also, especially in IRROPS when your flight gets "extended" outside of their normal window.

They should let the reservation you are flying stay around on the app for a bit longer, especially if the baggage tracking feature is going to be tied to it.
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Old Sep 22, 2017, 3:14 pm
  #42  
 
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Pleasantly surprised to see that this even works with interline bags coming coming from another carrier (in this case LH with a 02x bag tag):

While waiting to board the first UA flight of the itinerary (after napping in the LH Senator Lounge -- a godsend)


After Landing in ORD but before sollecting my bag


Currently sitting in the B6 United Club and the results look the same as they did before (even though both the bag and I cleared customs and the bag was rechecked nearly an hour ago) -- would be nice, either to allow visibility into all scan activity as mentioned up thread, or to add an additional step to confirm that the bag has been recorded as being rechecked post-customs
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Old Sep 22, 2017, 3:38 pm
  #43  
 
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Originally Posted by bmr12
Overall I was unimpressed by this last week. It showed my bag being checked and loaded onto the plane. Then, upon arrival, the app deleted everything to do with the flight (boarding pass, the info in flight status, and knowledge of my checked bag).

You can retrieve the bag info after arrival by typing in or scanning the bag tag number, but the app never indicated my bag getting off the plane or put on the belt. I lost interest in testing after my bag came out the chute.
This was my experience arriving into MIA recently (the deleted itinerary immediately upon arrival part). I was able to retrieve the beta baggage functionality via a manual entry of my record locator. What concerned me was that it showed my bag as having arrived before bags could possibly have begun to be offloaded, leaving me to suspect that the app is simply drawing a conclusion from the aircraft's arrival and the bag's departure scan (and it's not clear to me that that's necessarily a scan as the bag is physically being loaded onto the aircraft).

On the whole, it's a start catching up to the competition, which is of course what UA's known best for (for better or worse)...
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Old Sep 22, 2017, 8:06 pm
  #44  
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Originally Posted by CCIE_Flyer
This was my experience arriving into MIA recently (the deleted itinerary immediately upon arrival part). I was able to retrieve the beta baggage functionality via a manual entry of my record locator. What concerned me was that it showed my bag as having arrived before bags could possibly have begun to be offloaded, leaving me to suspect that the app is simply drawing a conclusion from the aircraft's arrival and the bag's departure scan (and it's not clear to me that that's necessarily a scan as the bag is physically being loaded onto the aircraft).

On the whole, it's a start catching up to the competition, which is of course what UA's known best for (for better or worse)...
I don't recall ever seeing someone scan bags on a United flight as they come OFF the plane. Therefore, UA wouldn't actually know if the bag was taken off the plane because it wasn't scanned. So if it sees a departure scan on the flight you just arrived on from the originating airport then it's safe to assume it's made it to your destination airport and is ready to be delivered on the baggage belt.

If United were to provide us the info we all want, like what time a bag was taken off the plane before it got delivered on the belt, then they would have to scan every bag as it came off the plane. That would slow down the baggage delivery process so I don't see them starting this.

I think the scan showing it was loaded on the flight at the originating airport is sufficient.

-RM
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Old Sep 22, 2017, 11:30 pm
  #45  
 
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Originally Posted by RobOnLI
I don't recall ever seeing someone scan bags on a United flight as they come OFF the plane. Therefore, UA wouldn't actually know if the bag was taken off the plane because it wasn't scanned. So if it sees a departure scan on the flight you just arrived on from the originating airport then it's safe to assume it's made it to your destination airport and is ready to be delivered on the baggage belt.

If United were to provide us the info we all want, like what time a bag was taken off the plane before it got delivered on the belt, then they would have to scan every bag as it came off the plane. That would slow down the baggage delivery process so I don't see them starting this.

I think the scan showing it was loaded on the flight at the originating airport is sufficient.

-RM
Not only does United scan bags off the plane, but they have been doing it for years. Only recently have they started scanning them again when they're put on the claim belt (which is a new focus specifically because of this app feature). To me scanning terminating bags twice (within minutes of each other) is a huge redundancy and a waste of time/effort, but I suppose the more info the better.

Then again, if United were to show the passenger every single time their bag is scanned, it'd be information overload and probably counterproductive. Seeing a dozen different scans for each point in the bag's journey, half of which would confuse 99% of passengers, isn't really a beneficial addition in my eyes.
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