estnet

Haven't flown UA for years and tonight I gave up trying to reach AA after being on hold for 4 hours. UA answered after a few minutes (I have equal status on both - mid tier). I know I can reach AA on twitter but don't know alternate ways to reach UA.
So if I am unlucky and a flight gets cancelled and customer service agents are overwhelmed and phone holds are long and I can't rebook online (likely b/c of award travel) are there any other means of contact? Agent mentioned they have chat but I don't see it on the website - have I missed it? Can I reach them on twitter? TIA

WineCountryUA

UA has Twitter and FB agents ( and I believe some have mentioned Instagram)

UA has been doing better than others on phone support.

estnet

Thanks I only have twitter (don't use FB or Insta) - now I have a backup

Repooc17

AA customer service can be reached via its app.

geckoflyer

I've always found Twitter (@United) to be incredibly helpful. When sending a DM, spell out as briefly and concisely as possible what your questions is and also what you would like done. Even with shorter wait times, I find Twitter to be a better way to handle many issues.

TomMM

Via the chat function in the UA app.

riphamilton

to take it a step further, i always include my confirmation number, MP number and DOB in the initial message as well - along with specific instructions for what i would like done.

if any changes need to be made, they’ll ask you these questions in their reply. it can take minutes to hours for them to get back to your message, so you might as well eliminate step two. sorta like being at a restaurant and giving your credit card to your server when they come with the check.

gokeeper

Tried that the other day, and the chat agent even don't know what SDC is

TomMM

I used it during a IAD-FRA flight and the agent was alright but the connectivity stunk.

mahasamatman

It's best not to use Flyertalk-specific acronyms with customer service agents.

gokeeper

I didn't, I asked the agent if he/she can do a Same Day Change for a flight out of HNL and he/she replied all evening flight will arrive the next day

estnet

Thanks useful info
I was looking on the website, but I can't find chat in the app - can u help?
Are they able to handle irreg ops affecting award travel on partner? Eg I have and award and a revenue ticket (one each way) LH connecting to UA (and the other way vice versa), to complicate matters the longest flight is economy ug with pluspoints. So it would not just be a simple UA to UA change - might involve having to rebook a revenue hopefully keeping my ug and/or rebooking an award for a cancelling flight (that connects not just changing dates).
The other scenario is short LH connect to LH transatlantic to EWR connect on UA EWR-SFO - award. So if the originating gets cancelled by LH I don't want to rely on them to rebook a UA award. Well anyway maybe I'm worrying too much - but I'm out of practice but well aware that reaching the right person (with status at UA and them issuing the tickets) is likely to get me further than trying to deal with LH if they cancel/delay a small segment that is the originating flight.

if any changes need to be made, they’ll ask you these questions in their reply. it can take minutes to hours for them to get back to your message, so you might as well eliminate step two. sorta like being at a restaurant and giving your credit card to your server when they come with the check.[/QUOTE]

TomMM

In the App select More and then Contact Us.

dilanesp

One old trick I had was to call the Spanish number

emcampbe

Lots of good suggestions in here - foreign call centers, Twitter, etc. I was talking to Twitter this morning - they are not always great on there, but they do tend to respond fairly quickly.

I was just noting in another thread the text option - anytime you call (or at least, when I do), they give an option to get texted a link to start a chat. I don't know if this team is the same as the teams that answer Twitter, etc., but I've found that a helpful option for certain things (though you do have to go through a menu option first). If you have an iPhone, it puts you on a message thread that has the UA logo, etc. I've found that you can always go back to that in messages, and start a new convo from there.

That said, I'm silver, and found the hold times are fairly short these days - I don't think I've waited more than maybe 3-5 minutes since maybe Labor Day or so. UA sure beats Air Canada, where to be fair I don't have status, but at just before midnight PT, I had a 45 minute wait.