estnet

Oh good old ual.com - won't let me book lax-sfo on the day I want to because "one flight leaves before the other arrives"

Well I guess it isn't smart enough to know if I leave NRT on the 28th I arrive in la on the 28th not the 29th!

chix

Less troublesome than UAL.com but far more complicated than just saving the unpurchased routing on UA CNXN and simply opening up the file later to check the latest fare.

Maybe United will keep UA CNXN working for customers like myself that just use it through my ISP.

If they just would keep this method live and shut down the dial up, the cost cutting goal would be accomplished and there would be many happy campers out there!

C'mon United, have a heart!

JackEdit

Another stupid decision by the idiots in "control" at UAL. It is little wonder that Southwest Airlines has a market cap seven times greater than the mighty UAL. The good news about their decision is that I now fly UAL only when I can find a good discount fare on them instead of the full fare first tickets I used to buy on UAL Connection. I've saved $18,000 since I got their letter and project my savings (cost to UAL) to be over $200,000 annually.
These guys are real geniuses!! I wonder if they have ever tried to book a reservation with a night shift agent on their 1K reservation line? Amazing! Of course I didn't include the cost of that great talent pool, either. The one I talked to last night almost spoke English!! And it took her 25 minutes to get me my $345 flight that I had been paying $2400 for most of this year. What you need to do is go to Orbitz, find the best fares and flights (much better than ual.com), call UA reservations and tell them about the flights you want , and save a ton of money.
Of course when I don't have the luxury of going on a discount fare, I'll be moving ALL my full-fare travel to AA, CX, and BA, where they do a much better job in the air, anyway.

mpclaw

What a sad, sad day. Gee, a corporation fails to take heed of customer imput on an important issue. Later, ousted members of the board look back and wonder where where they made their mistakes.

HELLO UAL. THIS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE. LISTEN TO YOUR BEST CUSTOMERS. YOU EXSIST BECAUSE THEY EXSIST. It's not the other way around

MBS MillionMiler

Folks, I think the party might be over.

I just spent 20 minutes trying to log on via dial-up and it bombed out 6-7 times. I felt like the EMT continuing CPR on a hopeless patient.

I'm sure I'll try signing on tomorrow too, and the next day, and the next day...

Droneklax

"logon error:Inactive software session".

UA connection is dead.

You think this management cared? Think again.

If you're in the mood to hear hot air, I suggest you listen to the Q&A session that is posted on the UA website. During the press conference announcing the Q2 results, some UA brass answered questions from institutional investors.
I believe it was Rono Dutta, President of UA, who said:
"Our strategy is to focus on zero-growth and customer experience on the ground". LOL

Well, Mr. Dutta, United Connection IS customer experience on the ground. And let me tell you, your website booking tool has gone from bad to worse. Yesterday, I tried to book a LAX-Medford for August which priced at $585 (barely halfway up the West Coast!) . I had no real easy way of hunting for cheaper fares becasue guess what, THE WEB SITE HAS VERY LIMITED OPTIONS!. So I went to Orbitz and found a $269 fare (labeled as Web-only except that I could not find it on the web). Meanwhile UA Connection immediately gave me the lowest fares of $320 (since it's not the "web").

The website is appalling. Look at what one of UA's agents says about it: http://www.planebusiness.com/cgi-bin...&f=14&t=000322

$322 million in a quarter? $3,500,000 a day ? Someone needs to get fired. Or perhaps forego that fat ($50,000,000 even if the deal is DOA) US Airways bonus they'll receive for "setting up the deal".

A scandal.

BTW, I am beginning to think that the strategy is to funnel all bookings to Orbitz and eventually dump the website.



[This message has been edited by Droneklax (edited 07-20-2001).]

Denver1K

They pulled the plug today. I can't log on even through my ISP.

Sad.

I've booked a couple of itineraries via ual.com. Slow, cumbersome, inefficient, with none of the features we liked on the disk product.

I'm wondering if the end of UA Connection isn't tied somehow to their negotiations with IAM after reading today's WSJ story?

dw

Sigh... I booked my last res over UA CXN yesterday morning (on HOLD), and went to ticket it at a local CTO with a customer service voucher.

I only started flying United three years ago, and have been using UA CXN to book the majority of my trips SINCE I started flying this airline.

I understand the airline is losing money (and a LOT of it) right now... but our experience as passengers and as FFs has only continued to decline over the past year.

Does UA even care?

[This message has been edited by dw (edited 07-20-2001).]

AnnaS

While I agree with you on this, considering the UA attitude lately, would it have made one iota of difference? If UA management isn't listening to numerous letters from their best customers even after an article in the WSJ, what makes us think they'd have listened to Randy? I'm sure that AA would be more than happy to take my business w/ a status comp and I can only hope that if UA goes under, the airline that snatches up the pieces for a song will still honor all my FF miles.

As for the death of UA Connection, does this call for Irish wake treatment & drink to it w/ our (preferrably alcoholic) beverage of choice?

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Regards,
- Anna

[This message has been edited by AnnaS (edited 07-20-2001).]

767-322ETOPS

UA Connection was mentioned in the Weekend Journal again today.

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Who is John Galt?
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cblaisd

The error message I get is "Login error: Inactive software version."

This particular error message that has been inserted by the programmers somewhere suggests to my slighty geeky, know-a-little-probably-just-enough-to-be-dangerous mind that there is something in the software that sends its version information when trying to log on and is thereby rejected. The content of the error message implies to me that if one had an "active" version you could still connect to the database. Are there any programmers among us who know far, far, far more than I who could look through the executable or other file to see if there is a likely code-candidate that could be changed so that the UA's database would think it was indeed an "active software version"? Or am I grasping at straws?

Added after a little sleuthing: 1. The only place the text "Inactive version" appears in any of the files in the UCxn directory is in the main executable, uconnect.exe

2. If you set your computer's date for a date earlier than today (I tried one year ago), you get a different error message when trying to logon: "Exception: Please contact United Technical Support."



[This message has been edited by cblaisd (edited 07-20-2001).]

cblaisd

In response to:

AnnaS wrote:
I have no idea whether it would have made a difference. You may well be right. What I would have hoped for, if that was the case or if that was Randy's assessment, was some word from him in that regard. In a month, I would have hoped he might have said "I can't take this on now" or "This is hopeless" or "With only so many hours in a day I have to put my resources elsewhere" or ??? In other words, I saw this request of Randy, seconded by many of us, as a request of our host for his assistance. If the request was something he could not help with or if he knew from his perspective or sources that it was simply going to be Quixotic quest, then a word to that effect would have been appreciated.

And, "for the record" , none of that takes away from my profound appreciation for Randy and for his hosting this special place (which I'm sure can't make him any money and probably is a drain on his corporate resources to boot!) In all my years on the internet and its predecessors, I have never been a part of a place, a community, that is, overall, so helpful, special, and civil. There are people I've "met" here who I like better than people I actually know and who I would trust implicitly (even having never "really" met them). Randy's presence and style has lots to do with that and I am grateful. But I am digressing....

I heartily second that emotion.

FlyingRev

"Please bow your heads as we go to our Heavenly Father in Prayer." This is how I begin a funeral, and so, it seems fitting to say it here. UACNX is dead, and there seems to be no similarities between it and Lazarus. It is not coming back from the dead, even though many of us hoped it would.

United has again proven their poor sense of timing with this move. The "Peter Principle" is in full effect at UAL! If you notice elsewhere on this board, UAL.COM is having major problems with its mileage summaries. It was (hopefully corrected) showing mileage information for persons other than your own.

What can we do? seemingly nothing. As UACNX rides off into the sunset, I remember that little kid in the movie, "Shane." When he calls out to Alan Ladd, and says, "Come back Shane, Come back!" Seems UA and Shane have one thing in common....Neither one listened!

BL1KITW

Why is United doing everything it can to move our LOVE/HATE relationship away from LOVE and closer to LUV?

By the way, wouldn't they save some money if they disconnected the phone lines to UACNXN? Oh yea, we wouldn't get the message to call the United Connection Help Desk. There's an oxymoron.

I guess beating my keyboard and punching my monitor isn't helping. Maybe I'll try www.iflyswa.com.

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Biggest Little 1K (in The Biggest Little City) In The World

cesco.g

Very sad and upsetting. Our letters and concerns have resulted in mostly canned replies. Where a response was a bit tailored it never addressed the real issues and tried to sell us that insane, inferior .com crap.
"We'll trade your Ferrari for a Yugo!" Great! How stupid do some UA waterheads think their best customers are?

While I can understand lower level CSR handling occasional adverse incidences (lost luggage, bad flight, denied upgrade etc.)
This is a crucial issue affecting our dealing with this airline on an ongoing basis. This is the first time in my 10+ years with UA I would expect a top level manager to take the time and address our concerns. But I am left with the feeling that my/our letters to Goodwin and his group never even crossed their desk.
It's obvious: It does not matter how important an issue you have, the big guys at UA do not bother to listen to you and really care about your concerns (and their bottom-line), for those guys up there you are and will be a nobody.
True customer care at UA?
With those water melons in the excecutive floor:
FOGEDABAOUTIT!