Brian

The final chapter of PassPlus for me is written, and it ended ugly.

Since 3/3, it's been almost impossible to use PassPlus to access my own funds that I had deposited with United.

With less than 48 hours notice (to 3/3), I was informed that the new website was incapable of handling PassPlus reservations (the old site did so easily), and there were no more PassPlus CSRs, so the only option was to get set up with and use a TA that is certified for the program. This takes time and costs money.

Several weeks later, they restored a small number of CSRs, wait times averaged over an hour. I finally tried booking a bunch of tickets in one call to use up my funds.

I had one last ticket that needed to be refunded and rewritten for the last two days of my contract. In the new UA/CO world, they are incapable of doing that, and they need weeks to refund released funds back into the account.. past the end date of my contract. So with two days notice (to end of contract), they told me to go buy a ticket at prevailing (non-contract) fares. They will refund my PassPlus balance by check (sometime this decade).

So I did buy a new ticket at prevailing fares. On American. I'm EXP there now, and in customer service, they are everything UA is not.

What a mess this airline has become.

5khours

I'm curious why you signed up for PP in the first place. I took a look. It seemed like a good concept, but for the life of me I could never figure out how the pricing could possibly work for anyone.

N1120A

It works great for people who would otherwise buy full fare tickets.

5khours

I kind of get that, but I spend about $30k/year, book most of my travel last minute, and it is very rare even then that I end up buying a full fare ticket. With minimal planning, I can fly for a lot less than what I could have achieved with PP.

chinatraderjmr

25% off F and C including LH flights so it works well IF you fly in first and need refundable tkts. Otherwise I did not see the point. Even in C it was not worth it as there are refundable D fares out there. (FYI. I DIDN'T RE FILL MY ACCT AFTER DEC 31st - THANK GOD

bsmnsr

So this isn't a change you like?

Sorry, couldn't resist...

mherdeg

[QUOTE=Brian;18557772]With less than 48 hours notice (to 3/3), I was informed that the new website was incapable of handling PassPlus reservations (the old site did so easily), and there were no more PassPlus CSRs, so the only option was to get set up with and use a TA that is certified for the program. This takes time and costs money.

This would have been a great opportunity to get United to pay for your travel agent certifications and SABRE access!

I dunno about PassPlus in general, but under the old terms of the PassPlus Secure program, you could buy a one-way ticket SEA-IAD in booking class "Y" for $325. These were fully refundable, carried very good upgrade priority, and earned 3459 EQM -- not the best deal at 9cpm, but not a bad deal for "if the upgrade doesn't clear, can always get a refund" style tickets.

Brian

Exactly... under the old terms, when I signed up, the program worked very well at making my travel costs very predictable, if not the very lowest dollar every day.

But it was worth paying a couple hundred dollars extra per trip (usually) to get last seat availability, no cost changes and cancellations, and top upgrade priority when buying economy (domestic only).

Now, in addition to making the program functionally impossible to use, they have:

1. Increased all fares 30% or more... often much more.
2. Changed the booking class to eliminate last seat availability.
3. Which also changes upgrade priority as well.

I think the biggest strategic mistake every airline makes in developing these programs is not incorporating into their model that when they get a large advance deposit, it works even better than a FF program at insuring loyalty.

It's academic for me. I'm spending my money on AA now.

Beerman92

The complete mismanagement of PassPlus since the merger just doesn't bode well for United going forward. I told my sales rep that it would have been better to just end the program and he had been programmed to say route network. I felt bad for the guy and tried my best to suggest he get out of the mess before it was too late (this was back in Jan or Feb).

chinatraderjmr

I don't get this route network nonsense Deltas route network is just as good as UA's and while they dont have that "game changing" 787 coming this year, they have a great product on there 77W. (ans with the exception of the 380, I'll take a brand new 77W over anything including a 787 with 1 million seats jammed in a la UA

HemispheresSubscriber

I'm a longtime Lifetime Pass Plus member and just received the new contract addendum. Curious if anyone else got it and what they think.

tproulx1

My family has 5 lifetime PassPlus accounts (25K miles per year, not unlimited). We got the addendum and it's totally unacceptable. I'm calling United tomorrow to discuss.

FlyingNut724

what's in it?

cerealmarketer

Smells a little like that AA problem from a few years ago. Here are some vintage PassPlus terms

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/857581-post5.html

Jkanter3

If you are in United's Pass Plus program, particularly lifetime members, and you have received and are concerned about the recent proposal to convert the mileage-based system to a soft-dollar system, please contact me. We are trying to find as many members as possible to be sure we all understand what is really happening. Thank you.