I find the comment bloatware interesting given how cheap memory and CPU speed is in 2022.

Further service for which you’ve already paid? What did you pay for that isn’t provided?

this just encourages developers to increase the amount of bloat in their applications.smartphone price increases each year which offsets the economies of ram/cpu price declines. The UA app is the fourth largest app on my phone behind google play, Google, and downloaded music app (after i cleared the cache). it's apparently designed to collect personal data/location info and redistribute to third parties.

example, the ability to check in with an agent. Was vehemently denied this by the premier line agent recently when dropping off bags (even though I'm 1MM) told to use kiosks or app. I wanted to explore different /earlier flights because the app was being wonky but was denied (there was no one else in any line). I paid to check-in for the flight and had a question about it...but was denied the option to speak with an agent at check-in full-stop.

As a business owner, I can tell you that post-pandemic the average customer spend is MUCH higher when all of their information is pre-loaded into whatever system a business accepts. In our locations, per caps increased almost 30% by a) not accepting cash b) asking customers to load their credit info in advance. It's somewhat like a casino not using real money as chips....Not having to extend a credit card works as an incentive for a passenger to buy something.

Does it work like this on a plane? Probably not as well as on the ground. But it also likely very much speeds up the process of serving passengers, saves tons of money on the hardware as mentioned upthread, and further acts as a very useful CRM tool in determining who spends what and when.

I never defend UA on anything, but this process- while not entirely convenient for many passengers- is an understandable approach in today's world.

it's particularly "inconvenient" when it just flat doesn't work.

Suggestion to UA: stop sending emails to preorder food when you can't, and stop sending invitations to register a cc to buy food online when that won't work either. Then I'll know my choices are either to bring my own food or download the app, and I can plan accordingly.

SInce this affects the collection of revenue, if this was a common issue, UA would address it. So that may be an indication that while it 100% impacted you, it may not be a widespread issue. We don't know if UA is collecting more inflight revenue due to these changes, but if they were not that would capture UA's attention. Extrapolating one's experiences to a larger group can be problematic.

I've had 3 CCs cloned/compromised from sites where I had pre-loaded my cards this year. There must be many security flaws in these systems for this to be happening. When I talked to Chase security on the most recent breach, the agent told me not to leave any CC info pre-loaded on any websites anymore. He told me that this problem is becoming more common. While I've never had a problem with UA, and they are my #1 travel spend recipient, I've decided to just memorize all of my CCs and add the info when I get to the purchase page.

Have you looked into virtual CC numbers?

Some CC issuers will let you create virtual CC numbers that are each time to a single merchant or site. If that number is compromised, it doesn't affect the main card or any of the other virtual card numbers. I do this with my CapitalOne card through a browser plug-in that creates, and manages, the virtual CC numbers.

There are also 3rd party services which will also let you create virtual CC numbers. I haven't tried any of those myself.

One compromise that seems like it would (maybe?) be very easy to implement is to allow flyers to download & install the UA app on-board using the WiFi.