Over the last few days, my held itn keep disappearing from .bomb long before they are supposed to. And most of the time when I'm trying to hold again, the price has gone up. I've forgotten to keep track of the PNR, so I 'm assuming the bookings are gone for good. Is this happening to anyone else?

We all know this one, but I need to vent because it's happening to me! Upgrade IAD-SFO is waitlisted. Checked flight today, and it's NF1 on .bomb. I call to try to grab the seat. But, it's not NF1. Grrr. :td:

Pricing problems
 

I just went to book an LAX/SFO round trip. I put in my dates, the website ground for a while and came up with the usual list of available flights, defaulting to the 6 am departures and indicated a fare of $384. I though this was high (I've been routinely getting next day one-ways for $160), but I also didn't want to take such early flights. I started clicking around the mid-day flights, expecting them price higher, but the website kept indicating $384. Thinking this was lucky, I selected my preferred times and went to purchase the tickets. The ticket page comes up and the fare that had just showed $384 was now only $264. Well, I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I bought it. Now, of course, I realize that the fare calculation feature on the first page was broken -- for all I know there were cheaper fares around the same time I wanted to depart. Well, this is still a pretty good fare -- less than the one-way flights I've been buying on this route -- but still, what's the point of on-line booking if I don't know the fare?

I haven't noticed this issue but I suggest you take advantage of the email feature and when you hold (or book) an itinerary, you'll get an email with the itin - helps for providing "proof" of the hold when needed.

If you go to rebook within the period the original itin should still be held, just call the web support group and make them figure it out for you. With the email, you can prove you held it and when.

I haven't been receiving email confirmation of my held itineraries for several months. I'm resorting to taking screenshots of my browser displaying the held fare.

were your emails in there? I got one for an itin I put on hold yesterday

Yes, I haven't changed anything in my profile, according to this thread emails aren't being sent anymore: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...highlight=hold

I think I got confused - I purchased and put an itin on hold that day, and knew I had email that was stored. I just assumed it was both. I went to buy the ticket on hold last night, but couldn't find the email so now can't be sure I received it and from the thread you referenced, its likely I did not.

the impossible .bomb
 

Every now and then I run into problems with the .bomb, but never anything like tonight. I need to book 4 of us out on the same flight, 2 of us returning the next day and 2 on the second day. On the first screen that comes up, the desired flights fare out at $284. When I select that fare, though, the next screen that comes up explains that there has been a fare change, asks me to check a box indicating acceptance of the change, and then shows the fare as $814 per person (H) now?! What makes it all the more outrageous is that a CSR just offered the same flights at $459 pp. (I opted for the cheaper earlier departing flight at $419 pp.)

Suppose I had made the purchase online at the higher price and not learned until later I could have had it so much cheaper going through a CSR, what then? Isn't the Low Fare Guarantee that one will not find the same UA flights for less (must be in same coach fare bucket?) elsewhere? Does "elsewhere" include going through a UA CSR? How would I prove up the screwing, since there would be no screen shot to show documenting that it was cheaper going through a CSR? And what could I look forward to if I convinced them of this, the price difference online versus through a CSR + $50, all of it in ecerts, so I pay cash (credit card charge) and they give me back scrip in a slightly greater amount (+$50) for my trouble?!

Now, to make this really screwy, I was just on the phone with Tech Support and the rep there told me he would issue the tickets at the $284 pp I saw on the first page. BUT, he asked me to hold and I was cut off?!:mad::mad::mad: (I'm calling back now.)

What gives with .bomb? Can the bomb ever work to our advantage, or is the best that we can do going with the .bomb a savings of a $15 booking fee (waived for 1Ks) and the extra EQM and RDM using a Chase Platinum Visa?

(It may be a bit silly to refer to united.com as .bomb, something that occasionally confuses noobies. But most other things I would call it would not be nearly as polite. Does UA not realize how bad the .bomb is, or they don't care, or it would take too much money to do it right?)

I had a similar problem earlier today when trying to re-fare an existing reservation. I paid $551 originally, got an e-mail from Yapta that it had dropped to $433, so I got online and checked and then called UA for a voucher.

I spent 36 minutes with the ICC getting putting on hold after hold as I got successive responses that it was $502, $482, $469. Every time the agent came back on the phone I did another search and came up with $433 (and for that matter it STILL shows $433). Frankly I don't care whether the price displayed is accurate or not - if they can't get their website functioning correctly, I expect United to honor their messed up price quote. It's no different at a store - they may correct the price after I've left, but if there is an incorrect price displayed on an item, I have every expectation that it will be honored.

I read through this thread for several pages, and tried searching the thread but didn't come up with this one. Apologies if I missed it.

User Interface design problem. Booked award travel (I haven't flown UAL in years and need to burn the miles) and received this output:

We are unable to process your reservation at this time. Please try again later.

"Sonufa... No wonder it's called the dot.bomb!"
Then below.....

Your reservation is currently being processed. Once your credit card has been authorized and your ticket(s) have been issued, you will receive a confirmation email for your travel purchase within 24 hours. Should you not receive your confirmation email within 24 hours or if you are traveling within 24 hours, please contact united.com at 1-800-589-5582 for assistance. Thank you for choosing United.

What a costly design screw up. Why the first line? That must generate tens of thousands of dollars of unneeded cost every day due to forcing calls into the call centers to see what the heck is going on.

Just stupid. Really stupid! Leaves me wondering if this is going to book. Award miles provided by buying toilet paper at Safeway. UAL should be delivering them on T.P. too.

Follow up
 

No email 24 hrs later. I call the DotBom support line and listen to their poorly implemented top of the line Genesys GVP IVR. The male voice sounds like it is using Text to Speech because it is so clipped and poor quality. I suppose they have matched it well with the United brand as it barely lives today.

When I reached the CSR in the Philippines, she was very friendly and helpful. No complaints there. I did participate in the after call survey and gave her high marks. Unfortunately there wasn't a question about the self service experience; I would definitely enjoyed giving UAL a -9 on a 10 scale.

The CSR told me that it didn't process properly, and they had to charge me another $50 (which I did see on their website somewhere, but never during the award booking process.) I did get the aisle seats that I desperately need, so I suppose my last UAL flights will be tolerable. I won't bother to post inflight feedback here, it must all stink these days.

I would be happy to provide detailed feedback to UAL management, but have heard directly from former employees who were responsible for self service, that UAL just doesn't give a rip about customer experience, and budgets to improve it are seriously cut back.

I can only laugh at anyone that chooses UAL on their own, and cry for those who are trapped due to their location.

UA's information services/technology needs improvement.

Case in point: This past weekend I flew DL and the mileage credits were posted within hours. People who had no seat assignment could watch the screen for their seat assignment, and board using DM card instead of needing gate agent to print them a boarding pass. The latter would decrease gate agent's workload significantly.

Minor gripe, but when logging in from the homepage and going to My Itineraries, the intermediate page says "Searching for Flights..."

Sure, I suppose they are searching for my flights, but this is the same intermediate page when searching for flights to book.

UA Website Crawls
 

Worst site performance among all airlines. What is the point of earning rewards when something as rudimentary as the ability to book reward ticket works as if I am sitting in the middle of the amazon forest. Search for tickets is taking 15 minutes or more at this point.