Polaris check in at O'Hare: no actual agents?
Sep 3, 2021, 10:32 am
#31
Join Date: Aug 2011
Programs: UA 1K | Marriott LT Platinum
Posts: 459
I check a bag roughly 20% of the time, the rest of the time, I just want my BP. I’d rather queue up and check-in, it’s a mental checkmark for me in the day-of-flight process. And in the case of ORD (but really I find EWR to be the worst), it can sometimes take 10 minutes to flag down an agent at Premier Access. Sometimes, I rather just go to Additional Services and wait in a traditional queue, despite having access to Premier.
I could never imagine waiting in line for something I can access on my phone but clearly different mindsets / philosophies on the travel experience.
When I’m checking bags with United, I am often in need of manual agent assistance. Between the manual travel document checks for my one-way international trips, the use of separate tickets across multiple Star Alliance airline flights and a mix of other things, the chances that I need a check-in agent tend to be high enough and at such times that the super-decimation of UA check-in staff availability at ORD is more than just a minor nuisance for me — it makes a difference in when and how I fly out, whether with luggage to check-in or not.
Sep 3, 2021, 11:19 am
#32
Suspended
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Watchlisted by the prejudiced, en route to purgatory
Programs: Just Say No to Fleecing and Blacklisting
Posts: 102,095
If UA had "remote" check-in agents able to handle things through a video call on a kiosk and push out things for me -- and if the agents were empowered by UA to actually do customer-friendly things to the complete extent I get from the at-airport check-in agents -- then I wouldn't have a complaint about this aspect of UA. At least not unless and until there is a computer/communication systems outage or stuck behind one or more flightload of passengers hit by IRROPS.