auandagbug

As a Chase cardholder and Premier Silver flyer, when I do flight searches for award (and paid) tickets on United's website, I usually see the most desirable flight options listed first--one stops first, then two stops with total flight time getting longer as I page through the many results.

Today I did a search for a one-way award ticket between a certain city pair and the first page of flight search results presented was a variety of two-stop options, some with tight connections, unusual routings, and/or interlines to another mainline carrier for one of the segments. Much to my surprise, buried on page 2 of flight search results among those presented with very long layovers and multiple stops, were several very desirable one-stop options with the shortest total flight times, reasonable connections, and optimal layover times.

Is this a glitch with United's reservations system or are they trying to sell their less desirable two-stop flight options first on their website? I wonder how many people looking to book flights view flight search results beyond the first page? Why weren't the most desirable one stop options listed first on page one of flight search results?

mrt88

I've seen this happen a lot, especially with partner awards, the top ones are often UA-only and then there are better connections further down

mahasamatman

Maybe they've changed the default sort? It used to sort by number of stops by default.

raehl311

Are the first ones "saver" awards and the later ones "standard"? Usually I see them sorted by price first.

Legend717

I've seen the same thing.
While it used to be fairly straight-forward, any more I can't figure out what the priority is for result display.
So when I search, not just for award tix but also for revenue, I make sure and click on the desired header that I want results sorted by, whether it's economy fare, or duration, or whatever.
It just eliminates that ten minutes of clicking through bullspit (I've asked nicely for United to return the "expand all" or "show all details" or whatever they called the feature that they had FOR YEARS, but asking United for anything sensible is about like spitting into the wind...) only to find that what you wanted was, as you say, buried in plain sight under layers of choices that no one in their right mind would take.

FLYMSY

garkster

Me too.

garkster

I do the same (own sorting), and also using the filters at the bottom of the page helps a lot when they present a heap of trash.

Two Bee

^

Kacee

The award search and display functions are both awful. Another one of UA's "enhancements"; this one dating back to October 2016.

The default sort is now by price. You can choose other criteria, but it will only apply one criteria (so you cannot, for example, sort first by number of stops, and then by total time).

snic

Another possible reason for this is that sometimes the sort order is based on economy prices/stops/etc even though you specified business class tickets in the search menu. This seems to happen after updating the search using the menu on the search results page.

cfischer

this is what the sort buttons are here for ... UA guessing whether you want less out of pocket $, less miles, less travel time, less connections or what not ... everyone has different preferences. I don't see this as an issue frankly.

Jimmie Jet

Kacee

No, the sort function barely works at all. It can only sort by a single criterion. Which means if you want business class and fewest number of stops (or any other combination of criteria) it will not work. It's next to worthless IMO. (And btw, it used to work the way it should, but UA has continually dumbed down the search and display functions to make searching as tedious as possible.)

cfischer

if you want business class there so few options ... you don't need a 2nd criteria for sorting