EsquireFlyer

I noticed today when booking a ticket that the "My Itineraries" and "Upgrades" menus on .bomb have gotten a little redesign. The salient features are:

• Most noticeably, the seat maps have been redrawn to emphasize E+. On the new maps, E+ seats clearly have much more legroom than E- seats (and there is probably more legroom in E+ on the map than on the plane ). Accordingly, the "person" icons that represent passengers have also been updated, so you can see that everyone in E+ has their legs stretched out twice as far as everyone in E- does. (I'm not kidding. Take a look if you think I am.) I'm guessing that the new seat maps are intended to further promote E+ upsells...and I'm betting that it will work! For pax pondering the buy-up, there's a significant difference between being told that E+ has more legroom, and being shown (an exaggerated version of) the extra legroom when you go to select your seat.
• Cartoon art on the "Upgrades" page showing the process of requesting an upgrade on UA, to be more user-friendly for newbies.
• More streamlined menu options for "Request an upgrade," "check upgrade balance," etc. on the Upgrades main page.
• A new "Request an upgrade" screen that has more shades of blue (less black and white), more rounded curves (fewer sharp angles). There's also a pop-out link "Compare upgrade types," probably to help newbie elites deciding what upgrade instruments to use. (And with DEQM, there may be quite a lot of new elites. )
• An easy-to-read chart showing all your available upgrade certificates and RDM balance, for those members wishing to upgrade using miles.
• The upgrade menu now shows the entire routing (one way) with one checkbox to upgrade. If you want to upgrade only an individual segment using e500s, there is a link "Upgrade individual segments using 500 mile certificate," which causes the individual segments to drop down with separate checkboxes. This new interface also eliminates the bizarre error message ("A 500-mile upgrade may only be used to upgrade one traveling companion") which we used to see, by default, under each segment every time we loaded the Request Upgrade screen.
  

Okay, so...these changes are somewhat minor. But considering how crappy .bomb used to be, I think the web team deserves some credit for making it a little more user friendly (and less ugly) with this update.

And the new design actually has practical benefits, helping to promote E+ upsells to bring in more revenue (although, alas, that means fewer empty E+ seats next to us elites. ugh), and providing a better explanation of the upgrade system (for MP elites who don't have FT to teach them everything!).

LNKed

Just checked out the changes. Definitely an upgrade in my book. I never liked the old upgrade page anyways. The new one really feels more at home with the rest of the website; it feels more seamless. ^ And I think you're right in saying more people will go for the E+... Good business move on United's part.

MP Premier

As noted, the E+ looks very nice with attractive and symbolically more legroom on the graphic.

Interestingly, on the same plane when looking in C and F cabins, the old icons are still there as if the legroom is comparable to E-. Maybe they're encouraging more E- to E+ and discouraging E+ to C or F? Hehe!

I wonder if we should expect the C and F cabins to get a makeover as well? Acutually, it would be kinda nice to see E+ and all the C/F cabins if we are looking for possible upgrades for purchase or possibilities all at once.

The Itineraries page has been updated for at least 2 weeks IIRC, does look a bit better.

Tor Viking

I might be blind, but I can`t see my E-upgrade summary link anymore.
I`ve looked through most of my page but I can`t locate it.
Is it just me or could someone tell me where I can find it.

Thanks.

beanex

Wow.... these some good cosmetic enhancements. I hope I can say the same for functional enhancements.

The E+ people are kind of misleading though, they make it look like we get a bed in E+, but it's only 5 inches more!! I do love E+, but I don't think it's comparable to C or F. :P

I hope someone don't start a class action lawsuit for incorrect advertisement and disproportional images

BDL-FRA

Check out: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...mary-link.html

Among other places where this has been discussed. It's another 'Enhancement' designed to get people to forget they have upgrade instruments...

mechteach

I have a flight coming up where I'm upgraded on the return, but not the outbound. Looking at the seat map, the E+ seats all look huge, while the F seats still look the same, of course.

braslvr

I guess I'm not a stickler for detail. I doubt I would have noticed the changes in the seat maps without hearing about them here.

JetAway

The "stretched legs" for E+ are good marketing but a little misleading.

oly_flyer

I like the change, but it makes me take a double take each time I see the seat maps now.

EsquireFlyer

I would have believed that if they had not also designed a whole new "Upgrades" page with pictures to explain the upgrade process and encourage upgrading (the throne picture), as well as answer newbie questions ("compare upgrade types") and display RDMs along with e-certs.

I now think that the removal of the specific "E-upgrade summary" link was just part of the redesign because the .bomb team thought that it would feel more streamlined to have all the information about upgrades be centralized on the new "Upgrades" home page. There is a link "Check upgrade balance" on the Upgrades home page, right under "Request an upgrade." And Check upgrade balance is the same page that was previously called "E-upgrade summary.'

Upgrades are still prominently linked from many places:

• Itineraries & Check-in > Upgrades
• Itineraries & Check-in > My Itineraries > E-Upgrades
• When viewing any itinerary, the "Upgrade" button at the bottom.
• Mileage Plus > My Mileage Summary > Request an Upgrade.
• Services & Information > Upgrades (under "Related links").

If MP was actually trying to make upgrades harder to use by removing the link, I don't believe that they would also have published a newbie-friendly page that explains the upgrade process more clearly, and lists all of your available upgrade instruments.

EsquireFlyer

Fixed a typo for you.

endobert

From what I could tell--at least when making a dummy booking while not logged in--the "stretched legs" don't appear in the seatmap on .bomb during booking. If it only shows up in my itins, then having to have e+ access to see the stretched legs would make it moot as a marketing tool. I hope I'm wrong for UA's sake -- where would "stretched legs" appear for someone who doesn't have e+ access already?

emcampbe

I just did a new dummy booking logged in, and then when logged out, and the stretched legs appeared in the seatmaps in both bookings? Are you sure you weren't looking at a flight on UX without ExPlus or something?

endobert

Yeah, it was very strange I thought. I was looking at mainline flights (57s, 67s, etc.) while not logged in, and the e+ section just had regular seats. I logged in, then the same seat maps when reopened showed the stretched legs.
Bizarre. Maybe it's because you were logged in first, and I looked before logging in?
hm...
EDIT: Using IE. maybe it's a browser caching issue?