lincolnjkc

Outside of some special contracts (if any still exist), in the US airlines stopped paying commissions to agents (real or virtual) on the vast majority of fares around 20 years ago -- it's the main reason the TA industry died out as quickly as it did, and why surviving TAs charge service fees.

As JSloan implied, distribution costs include the cost of licensing/maintaining the airline's own reservations system, fees charged by GDSes for handling non-native reservations (e.g. an agent using SABRE booking a UA flight), some of them are higher cost than others and UA attempts to recoup some of the higher cost methods, for example in UA's TA guidance:

But even when UA isn't directly recouping the cost there's still a cost (a few years ago I found a statistic from an OAL, possibly AA, cost a little north of $1/segment on average for flights booked through a GDS above the cost of a passenger who booked via .com (of course they aren't telling anyone what their .com cost is but it's clearly >$0.

mh3265a

I was having issues with UA phone agents yesterday (5/22) and today (5/23) in trying to redeposit RPUs and then applying one of them to a new reservation. Saving everyone the back-n-forth both agents indicated that recently (last few weeks) UA introduced a new system for upgrades. The ultimately redeposited my RPUs and were able to re-apply but it took forever. The agent today didn't even see my RPUs. Hopefully they can work out the kinks quickly.

Aussienarelle

Seriously? What is it with UA and IT systems. I have watched UA consistently ignore the adage, "If it ain't broke don't fix it". There are many IT related reservation things I used to be able to do myself but more and more I need to call to get reservations "fixed".

With all the IT "enhancements" since the long ago CO/UA merger you just think taking the time to step back and build a new system rather than try and cobble lots of fixes and patches would make sense. I understand it would not be easy but if we can work out how to make 5G technology work then surely building a reliable reservation system is not impossible. Defer to IT geeks and this thread really makes you wonder, and feel sorry for the poor CS folks at UA.

Kacee

I was told they now need supervisor approval to redeposit an RPU. And not surprisingly, there is now a longer wait to speak with a supervisor.

Many of the changes seem to be aimed at limiting agents' ability to perform passenger friendly tasks. In other words, UA is limiitng agent software tools in order to reduce MP benefits. This captures well where the airline has been heading in general for the past seven years.

findark

What does "redeposit" actually mean? Remove the premium segment, or add the instrument back to your account? The latter always used to involve a call over to MPSC, so the supervisor call looks weird. I can confirm about the wait though.. the other day the front-line agent and I waited about 25 minutes on hold to get a supervisor (for something unrelated).

mh3265a

Redeposit meant putting the instrument back into my account and removing upgrade request from another reservation. I know it takes time as I've done a number of times before. It was the UA phone agent who apologized profusely for how long it was taking to complete both actions.

findark

Right, but those are actually two completely independent actions in the system.

mh3265a

Again, not disagreeing...simply using this as an example confirming that one of their systems changed and its impacted some element (not clear which one) of the upgrade process. Again, the UA phone agent was vague but clearly confirming something has changed.

Interesting and good gouge. I didn't realize that was a change in policy per se as that had always been my experience prior. And, again to stress, I rarely ask for upgrade certs to be redeposited but needed to do so in this case.

lotemblizej

UA has failed to redeposit automatically 4 RPUs that were unsuccessful over the past 10 days. 2 RPUs were noted as being redeposited on the UA website under my MileagePlus activity, but never appeared in the account. 2 more RPUs were not noted as being redeposited and never appeared. Now I am missing 4 RPUs, it seems this bigger issue is causing the problem, which means I will also have to call and battle with UA on this.

lincolnjkc

I have a failed GPU (PremiumPlus (R) -> Polaris) from last Friday that has failed to redeposit... I was thinking it was due to the RBC being R and somewhat wonky [the app and website showed me as having cleared an upgrade in to PremPlus, for example] but it sounds like there may be a slightly larger issue. Since I have a cleared GPU for my return flight on Saturday I've been holding off on calling for fear of getting someone who misunderstands and kills my GPU.

lotemblizej

I also just noticed odd/incorrect data in the "upgrade activity" section on my account:
1) the 2 RPUs that were noted as being redeposited under my MP activity do NOT show as being redeposited under my upgrade activity section.
2) the upgrade activity section showing which upgrades were redeemed is not in chronological order, with ones from 2017, 2018 and 2019 all mixed together in random order.

This suggests to me a serious failure in the IT system that probably affects a lot of people.

GBadger

Kacee

I was told the agent needed a supervisor to remove the waitlisted RPU from my reservation. I appreciate that redeposit has always required MPSC assistance. This was different. (And took about 9 minutes on hold).

findark

That's awful.. the more simple reservation system things are coded to need an override the worse

Thanks for reporting.

lotemblizej

Today, without me calling or writing UA, the 4 RPUs appeared back in my account, so for me it seems a temporary glitch that UA took care of. Good for UA on this one.