jsloan

I agree that the list is inaccurate, but I do believe that only two are checked in. I suspect that there are no more than 8 passengers booked, and likely fewer. A surprising number of passengers don't bother checking in until they get to the airport.

Kacee

I think we can safely say the list is not accurate

Howard

Just as another example, today I'm on a domestic flight for which I'm CPU-eligible. My printed boarding pass says I'm added to the upgrade list. My name doesn't show up in the app as being on the upgrade list at all. An agent in the club looked into it. In Aero, just like in the app, I'm not on the list at all. However, in SHARES, I'm on the list at #8 .

What I don't understand about this situation is why UA doesn't seem to do very much QA before releasing new/updated software. Normally QA is a very important part of software development.

Kacee

I would assume development fell behind schedule, but senior management insisted on keeping the Dec. 4 rollout date, regardless. The upgrade snafus can't be helping them with 1Ks who are on the fence about the program right now.

jsloan

The amount of attention paid to QA is cultural. At some companies, it's extreme; at other companies, it's almost an afterthought. (It's part of the old adage: Good, Cheap, Quick; pick two).

UA's consumer-facing software has shown a clear lack of prioritization of QA for years. (The old website wasn't called United.bomb for nothing). This is particularly egregious, even by their standards.

However, I can tell you exactly what happened, despite having no personal knowledge of the situation at all: The MileagePlus team came up with PlusPoints; the executives picked a go-live date; they announced it; and nobody ever asked the technical teams involved if they could deliver it by that date. (Or, if they did ask, UA has built a culture of agreeing to deadline demands without investigation, which happens at some companies).

findark

No problem finding some manager or PM type from the technical side who would agree to any deadline

escapefromphl

Letting the customers find the bugs can be quite efficient as long as you don’t lose them because of it. And you actually have to listen to them. Couple of lost upgrades is not going to sink any ships.

JimInOhio

They had to come up with a whole new program to replace the GPU/RPU scheme. The introduction of a new cabin, PE (PY), demanded it but that’s for a different thread.

sabbasolo

I applied PP to upgrade my son and his partner TPAC. The waitlist was confirmed, showed on the reservation. Today he called and told me that it had disappeared - sure enough, no longer visible, and as far as I can tell the PP are no longer "requested".

Instead of just reapplying, I wrote to MP so that perhaps someone will tell the IT people....

villox

I noticed something odd about a future flight. I had used the forward-date trick to monitor a flight I have coming up in May where I'm waitlisted for an upgrade. Was previously showing on the list but noticed I had disappeared from it. Went to check the reservation and saw there had been a schedule change (by 5 minutes). Once I accepted the schedule change I was once again on the list.

Given I've never had visibility into the list previously no idea if it was always this way, but I thought it was interesting.

escapefromphl

No doubt there was the typical use of outsourcing involved as well.

findark

Schedule changes technically involve a deletion and an addition, so this is not particularly surprising.

villox

Yes, but I do wonder what implications it has for waitlist priority. Will you not be upgraded until you accept the schedule change? Could others be upgraded ahead of you?

All the more reason to diligently watch reservations I guess (and still incredibly frustrating how inconsistent United is in notifying about schedule changes).

fumje

I do also think it was always this way, and it explains why schedule changes are the most common cause for a problem in clearing upgrades.

jsloan

That's as may be, but they didn't have to introduce PlusPoints on December 4. They could have introduced them on December 20, or January 15, or March 3, and it wouldn't really have made much difference. I mean, they'd already had a PE cabin for quite some time before they created the new system, so it's not like they couldn't make RPU/GPUs work with PE. The schedule was pretty clearly made without adequate consideration for the necessary technical work; as customers, we're currently paying the price.