You were never going to find an agent who was going to be willing / able to do that, at least not without collecting a fare difference. That's just not how airfare is priced or sold. :( You were not going to win that battle.

I don't see any positive movement on today's P+ loads -- currently I see one seat on the 6 PM and one on the 7 PM. In fact, as of this moment, the next nonstop UA flight with P+ inventory of four or more is the Saturday daytime flight. :(

UA should be able to offer PEY space on Star Alliance (LH,OS,AC,LX) to LHR.

I am up to 5 last-minute, one-way, car rentals this year due to UA cancellations. I'm going to requalify for Hertz PC on my next trip thanks to UA. My longest one way rental, so far this year, has been from Orange County to New York at 2,850 miles. I made the drive in 2 1/2 days and the SUV I got only cost me $390-.

Good point. If you're willing to make an extra stop, this could be a good solution (and a better product). I'd love to hear about the new LX premium economy product...

I hadn't thought about that. UA's reluctance might depend upon the reason for the original cancellation.

That said, I see exactly one viable route tonight with 4 seats in P+ -- there's an Austrian flight out of JFK at 9:35 PM, and a five-hour layover at Vienna, with five seats available.

Tomorrow, UA claims that there are 4 seats available on SN from JFK-BRU, but the native flight number only has 1, so I don't know if that's real inventory or not. That's the only option that comes up.

(In other words, travel TATL, for four people, is extremely limited in PE right now).

Agree with Matthew about rebooking on JV partners, but LX only has PE on its 77Ws for now, and those 77Ws don't fly to EWR or JFK.

Looks like UA had an extra day EWR-LHR flight today that didn’t have PP.

Is it always this bad? Yes and no. I've been 1K for 16 years now and am sometimes treated well and other times deliberately ignored, and I spend 80% of my time in F. 1K desk is outsourced (but getting better), but the level of service there is nothing like it used to be: prior, one could change flights quickly, get rerouted quickly, everything a business traveler frequently requires out of an airline, but that is mostly all gone.


Here is the most important thing to know about United today: it's $$$$-based service, and you paid middling. If you book in advance, even in F, and save money, come departure time, you're a low-paying commodity, because there are others ahead of paid you that paid double and triple what you did, and they'll get priority over everything. This also means that if you're calling their generic help line, forget service or assistance...or them to help or aid your situation. They'll do the bare minimum to process you and get you off the phone.
It's all incredibly frustrating and disappointing, but this is what cattle pricing brings. Once prices double due to fuel costs, airlines will feel the sting and return to business/leisure travelers, and things will improve.

Yes, I realize that after reading the posts that were made while I was writing mine.

How many passengers were on the PNR? If more than 2, then "full" is more or less accurate (in that, the agent was looking for 3+ inventory and was being told that they did not exist). Perhaps the agent should have dug a bit more and given the option to split.

Just saw that while browsing delay times for those flights. Wonder why? The delays were not too bad today.

add “and no status. To that list

1K desk isn't outsourced, overflow is. Premier, 1K and GS are all staffed out of Chicago and Houston reservation centers (and remote agents). It routes to overseas call centers as overflow if wait times are high, but the desks are still US based. Granted Chicago and Houston are a ton of new employees, many of which don't know how to do anything more than a simple flight change.

They are empowered, the problem is the first word you said though - Inexperienced. Many agents don't know how to do anything that requires more than a simple point and click change. So either they think its not allowed or they call the support desks for things they should be able to do on their own, which then overwhelms them with calls and leads to 30-60 minute+ hold times for things which actually require the support desk. My understanding though is unless something is specifically violates a fare rule, requires a difference in fare, or requires overbooking a flight, the front line phone agents are allowed quite a bit of discretion to do right by us as passengers.

I mean the cancellation reason shouldn't matter for a premium cabin as UA's policies allow them to reroute premium cabin passengers on other airlines even for uncontrollable cancellations. Problem is they don't internally consider premium plus a separate cabin from economy (even though everything about it looks like a separate cabin including having its own booking codes :rolleyes:). Their official stance is it's a premium experience still within the economy cabin which is why they'll only reroute in economy and treat any disruptions to travel the same as any other economy fare.

A very high percentage of IRROPS changes require booking into a higher fare class.

It is worse than it used to be
 

I have a flight next week that had a schedule change a few months ago that results in a 56 MCT in LAX going from Terminal 8 to Terminal 7. I am catching the flight to SYD. I thought there may be another schedule change so held off contacting them. Reservation still notes eligible for a one time change.

My flights are: SAN-SFO-LAX-SYD.

Th reason it is not SAN-LAX is because that would result in me getting a 6am flight from SAN connecting to a 10.30pm flight to SYD.

So I was going to have an agent in the Polaris Lounge in IAD work on it last week but it was during the wild weather of the north east and they were dealing with pax trying to get home..

I called the 1K line when I got home and they asked if not traveling within 72 hours to use the Chat function. Okay I understand there are pax with urgent issues trying to get home. After waiting 60 minutes I get an agent. I explain to him I want to catch an earlier SFO-LAX flight telling him the flight number I want to swap from and the flight number i want to swap to. Chat agent starts off with so you want to change your EWR-LAX flight. Ummm no - are you looking at the reservation. Oh yes okay so you want to arrive into LAX at such and such a time (which is closish to the current time I will be arriving) and I say no and agent goes and yes sorry an hour earlier. I respond yes please. Agent says that will cost you a additional if you want to keep the business class seat to SYD. I push back and say it shouldn't cost me anything. Agent comes back and says yes you are right. So I ask again and the agent says if he makes that change I will lose my upgraded seat LAX-SYD as the class is no longer available. I push back again and agent states he checked with a supervisor and I would lose the Polaris seat LAX-SYD if I switch to the earlier connecting SFO-LAX flight. At that stage I responded do not touch the reservation. I know the Chat Agent was wrong but I sure as heck did not want to sit in coach for 14 hours. So that was 90 minutes of my life I will not get back.

I am now going to ask at SAN when I check in if they can put me on the earlier SFO-LAX flight.

It is a bad state of affairs at United atm. I feel for the agents but telling a customer they will lose their confirmed upgrade if they switch to an earlier connecting flight is a horrible feeling. I have been watching my reservation like a hawk as I know loads to Australia are high and I want ro keep 1A!

Sorry, should clarify. By difference in fare, I mean a change actually requiring the difference in fare to be collected due to the policy it was initiated under. Most cases this is going to be a voluntarily requested change, agents have no empowerment to choose to waive an add-collect for a voluntary change. The IRROPs (and schedule change) policy specifically calls out that no add-collect is necessary if rebooked within the guidelines of the policy, even though it often requires a different booking code. So empowerment isn't necessary in an IRROPs situation, having the experience to know how to override the system to process the change without it trying to charge the add collect is.