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1K Agent Difficulty Booking in New "Compass" System

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Old May 13, 2019, 7:09 pm
  #1  
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1K Agent Difficulty Booking in New "Compass" System

Second time today I have phoned to book tickets. Asked for J class and agent says they can only book H. I said, "I want fully refundable / changeable." First agent couldn't make it happen. Second agent says, "We just got a new system called Compass; I've been doing this 23 years and here I can't even sell you a ticket!" I am now on hold. I want J and i want to combine 3 ETCs. Agent says it shouldn't be a problem but the new system isn't allowing it.

What is this Compass system? Isn't Sabre the name of the reservation game for the phone agents?
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Old May 13, 2019, 7:25 pm
  #2  
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Originally Posted by jmcintosh
Second time today I have phoned to book tickets. Asked for J class and agent says they can only book H. I said, "I want fully refundable / changeable." First agent couldn't make it happen. Second agent says, "We just got a new system called Compass; I've been doing this 23 years and here I can't even sell you a ticket!" I am now on hold. I want J and i want to combine 3 ETCs. Agent says it shouldn't be a problem but the new system isn't allowing it.

What is this Compass system? Isn't Sabre the name of the reservation game for the phone agents?
Sabre? That’s AA
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Old May 13, 2019, 7:35 pm
  #3  
 
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Originally Posted by jmcintosh
Second time today I have phoned to book tickets. Asked for J class and agent says they can only book H. I said, "I want fully refundable / changeable." First agent couldn't make it happen. Second agent says, "We just got a new system called Compass; I've been doing this 23 years and here I can't even sell you a ticket!" I am now on hold. I want J and i want to combine 3 ETCs. Agent says it shouldn't be a problem but the new system isn't allowing it.

What is this Compass system? Isn't Sabre the name of the reservation game for the phone agents?
UA has SHARES.

well... had, from the sound of it.
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Old May 13, 2019, 7:56 pm
  #4  
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Originally Posted by bob_the_d
UA has SHARES.

well... had, from the sound of it.
UA is still using SHARES, but from time creates new overlays (think user interface with builtin macros / scripts) on SHARES. Compass appears to be another new overlay.
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Old May 13, 2019, 8:32 pm
  #5  
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Originally Posted by IAH-OIL-TRASH


Sabre? That’s AA
👍🏼👍🏼 I knew Sabre was someone. Now that folks say SHARES that rings familiar. Hoping the new GUI / overlay / whatever it is will be an upgrade. History of United IT upgrades haven’t always proven customer or agent friendly. 🥴
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Old May 14, 2019, 2:16 am
  #6  
 
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Lord, I got excited thinking it was the end of SHARES. It'll be a good day when that beast goes the way of the wind.
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Old May 14, 2019, 6:51 am
  #7  
 
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Yikes, I have over $2,000 worth of ETC that are set to expire at the end of June. If I can't extend them by getting a fully refundable ticket, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with them.
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Old May 14, 2019, 7:24 am
  #8  
 
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Originally Posted by jmcintosh


👍🏼👍🏼 I knew Sabre was someone. Now that folks say SHARES that rings familiar. Hoping the new GUI / overlay / whatever it is will be an upgrade. History of United IT upgrades haven’t always proven customer or agent friendly. 🥴
Sabre was the company that bought out Dunder Mifflin and started asking Jim, Dwight and the rest of the gang to sell Printers.
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Old May 14, 2019, 8:12 am
  #9  
 
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Originally Posted by dvs7310
Lord, I got excited thinking it was the end of SHARES. It'll be a good day when that beast goes the way of the wind.
You and I will be in the wind long before SHARES.

These are big, unwieldy beasts that take decades to unwind... and nobody has been talking about shutting down SHARES.

As someone with decades of experience in this stuff, unwinding a half century+ of custom coded business logic and processing for an embedded base business that's been built around such a thing isn't easy. Or, usually, cost effective. Or even business smart.
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Old May 14, 2019, 8:27 am
  #10  
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Originally Posted by dmurphynj
As someone with decades of experience in this stuff, unwinding a half century+ of custom coded business logic and processing for an embedded base business that's been built around such a thing isn't easy. Or, usually, cost effective. Or even business smart.
In other words, passengers and employees will be paying for CO's short-sighted decision to keep SHARES over Apollo for years to come.
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Old May 14, 2019, 8:54 am
  #11  
 
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Originally Posted by Kacee
In other words, passengers and employees will be paying for CO's short-sighted decision to keep SHARES over Apollo for years to come.
So, one off-hand comment by a random phone agent, in a completely unknown scenario, and we are right back to 2013 levels of dysfunction!

IMV, many of the ticketing changes over the past few years (proliferation of married-segment logic to all types of tickets, -LGT/Basic fares, etc.) have been deliberate business decisions rather than SHARES limitations, so at least there's that!
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Old May 14, 2019, 10:14 am
  #12  
 
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Originally Posted by dvs7310
Lord, I got excited thinking it was the end of SHARES. It'll be a good day when that beast goes the way of the wind.
Curious as to why? I'm not even sure anymore how SHARES remotely affects me.
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Old May 14, 2019, 10:30 am
  #13  
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Originally Posted by EWR764
So, one off-hand comment by a random phone agent, in a completely unknown scenario, and we are right back to 2013 levels of dysfunction!

IMV, many of the ticketing changes over the past few years (proliferation of married-segment logic to all types of tickets, -LGT/Basic fares, etc.) have been deliberate business decisions rather than SHARES limitations, so at least there's that!
I was referring to the well known inherent SHARES limitations, like the inability to process upgrades dynamically, inability to process upgrades for multi-pax PNRs, difficulty interlining bags (especially UA to UA), etc.
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Old May 14, 2019, 10:31 am
  #14  
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Originally Posted by FightingIlliniUAL
Curious as to why? I'm not even sure anymore how SHARES remotely affects me.
Let's not go into the faults of SHARES black hole once again, there are plenty of threads commenting on SHARES
2013 Conslidated IT/SHARES Issues Thread
Rumor regarding SHARES
SHARES now dropping TICKETED partner segments on award itins
Waiver Posted for SHARES Outage on July 8, 2015 - UA Has Resumed Operations
AERO - New SHARES overlay to debut [6-Mar-2013]
the pathetic SHARES auto-rebook engine
Is this what SHARES looks like? - 2015
New (?) SHARES IRROPs issues if first segment on ticket is on a partner airline? - 2017
Agent exclusively using Aero and not SHARES - 2017
Happy 50th SHARES!!! - 2018
are just a small fraction (list in oldest first)

and Comprehensive List of Expected Changes/Lost Functionality when United Moves to SHARES - 2012
Comparing today to this thread, does show that some SHARES of 2012 issues have been addressed


A general overview of these types of systems can be found in Airline reservations system - Wikipedia

The OP's query was about the latest overlay, COMPASS

Last edited by WineCountryUA; May 14, 2019 at 11:08 am Reason: more threads and some dates
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Old May 14, 2019, 10:41 am
  #15  
 
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Originally Posted by WineCountryUA
Let's not go into the faults of SHARES black hole once again, there are plenty of threads commenting on SHARES
]
Well aware of the initial issues with SHARES and the current thread is re: COMPASS. Most of those threads date back at least 5+ years. Just unsure of how SHARES is affecting him/her now. Guess they can open up a new thread about that if they want.
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