schedule changes are out of control
 

this is the 4th intineray in a row that I've gotten a recorded phone call telling me to call 1800india and this message in my itineraries.

the last one was for a 2 minute change in departute time for a connecting flight.

this one is a change in flight number and departure time (by 8 minutes) on my return connection from SIN.

why don't they just have a little tab online that I can click telling them I've gotten the notification? is this just a marketing ploy to force me to call 1800india to be asked if I want a car rental in SIN???? Is this flight control and they figured they can sell my seat on my original flight for more so they bumped me to a later flight?

AA, USCARE, NW, have only rarely done this.

My thoughts: A lot of those 2-3 minue shifts may have to do with United's decreasing turn times and increasing aircraft utilization. If I recall correctly from the 3Q earnings call, O'Hare is currently going through the process of implementing those changes, with the freed-up excess capacity being shifted to Dulles.

As far as I know, the other airlines you mentioned are not currently actively making such changes.

The SIN trip is LAS-SFO-HKG-SIN and SIN-NRT-SFO-LAS. no direct ORD issue.

it just seems excessive. and what happens if I don't call 1800india? (as a 2P that is all I ever get).

It isn't excessive to change flight times by a few minutes either way. It is excessive if they cancel the flights you are on and cause you to be rebooked on flights hours before or after your original itin.

I don't care about the minor changes. it is excessive to insist that each time I call 1800india.

one of the recent changes downgraded us from E+ to E- (although we were upgraded to F (757) ) .

I've found that Simon only insists I speak to ICC if I have multiple segments with sched changes. The one I had with 1/4 segs changed, he handled the confirmation himself. And, as a 2P, for the other itins with multiple sched changes, I waited until 9 pm PST and got a nice lady in Honolulu :) If at first you don't get US CSRs, call call again!

What are the time slots where you are most likely to get a US CSR?

I actually recently had a positive schedule change experience. The flight I had booked had an enormous layover in SFO. The schedule changed so that my first flight departs 1:45 later than originally scheduled and therefore cuts my layover by more than half. So, for all the negative schedule change stories... here is a positive one! ^

My schedule change is postive also. My connection in SFO got cut by 30 minutes better than my orignal 3 hour connection :D

I agree-- why can't they just email me? I hate the call when it says "here is a schedule change" and then it starts rattling off all the new times and I have to scramble to write it down (though I suppose I could just check my itin).

Maybe there could be a setting where it's like "don't call me unless it's a change of more than 30 minutes (or a cancellation, flight number change, etc.)."

For one thing, you probably won't be able to check in online. This happened to me and when I called CS, was told it was because of a schedule change that I did not call to confirm.

AMEN. This has been annoying the heck out of me lately. Just put a button as mentioned to 'accept' the schedule change on the website.

Here BTW is what I have discovered is the list of things you cannot do if there is a pending schedule change on your reservation: Check-in online, sponsor an upgrade for someone, change seat asignments online, exchange an e-ticket and *new* with ua.beta: you can't print a legible flight itinerary out as it prints every friggin segment, pre and post schedule change (ie: seg1: depart 10:55a; seg2: depart 10:58a). I would say that at least 90%+ of my and my friend's flights have had schedule changes recently. 90%. That in and of itself is indeed excessive in my book.

Well, being on the West Coast, I would wait until late evening/night to make the call, like I did at 9 PM PST. From my anecdotal evidence and experience, call when the Indian call center folks have gone home to sleep during the daytime. I have my cell phone dual time set to New Delhi for this reason! :D

I received an award paper ticket with UA and LH a month ago:
UA930 SFO-LHR
LH4751 LHR-MUC
LH4752 MUC-NAP
I just checked My Itineraries on the web and saw that there was a schedule change on all 3 segments. For the last segment, it's LH4754 instead of LH4752 arriving NAP 2 hours later than my original schedule. I'm no 1K/1P, so will United charge me $100 fee if I can find a different routing? And if I decide to keep the new schedule, do I need to request a new paper ticket with the new flight?
Thanks!

Since this is a schedule change that will put you in 2 hrs later you should be able to change without a fee. If you do the change over the phone and the agent agrees to this, make sure you get their name so that you have a record of confirming that you don't have to pay a fee. This is because even if you don't change the new routing, you will have to have the ticket reissued before you start travel since the flt #s are different.

The thing to remember is to put off reissuing till the last possible moment since if the trip is months away you can be sure there will be future schedule changes. In fact, I just reissued 4 tkts for Asia this evening that are for travel in a couple of weeks.