I woke up about an hour ago and opened my blinds to see the 7:10am United Express flight take to the skies out of Burbank airport, so knew at the minimum United was getting flights out this morning. Then I booted up my Mac and took a mini-tour of United.com and saw just a few things out of whack, such as my mileage balance, but wasn’t worried assuming everything will work itself out.
I then asked the Twitterverse how things were looking and Seth (Wandering Aramean) said things were just fine at CLE and LGA this morning and others reported that United is aware of the mileage balance issue and claims correct figures should appear within the next 24 hours. One follower reportedly had a 55-minute wait when calling the Premier line, which definitely seems excessive, but hopefully he got through.
Taking a closer look at United.com, all of my reservations made the transition successfully, though they display this message at the top.
I actually doubt I need to call to have the tickets reissued, so will just let things play out and check back. Curious about the rest of the day’s Burbank flights, I went to look up flight status only to find Burbank doesn’t exist.
That’s probably because Continental didn’t fly to BUR… another minor bug they’ll certainly work out in time.
I’m sure as the day progresses we’ll hear about some issues, but at this point, things seem pretty quiet and uneventful. How have you fared?
Ended up only being 30 min wait but I could tell agent (s) were busy/stressed. Had R class available but said “L class could not be upgraded via EAU – ill add you to standby list.” I may call back later
FWIW Burbank shows up as an airport on my iPad
All of my reservations ported over with the upgrades and seats still in place save for an award reservation and another flight in August. I fly Sunday night from LAX to IAD and was glad everything looks OK. My status is showing as correct but my status miles and award miles have yet to reflect my March 2nd United total.
Reservations came over this morning and miles/segments made their way over this afternoon.
I had the same message about reissuing a ticket for travel tomorrow. I went to check in, but got a prompt saying I couldn’t and to call. Now I’m on the phone, hopefully not waiting too long.
@Sam: Thanks for the info… if you get a chance, I’d love to hear if calling was able to “fix” your reservation in order to check-in online.
My mileage is a mess, but the balance is now correct, and my lifetime flight miles are finally merged…
I’m flying out of Seattle on united today and the check-in was fine for me but I overheard the agent saying that the computer system went down and they might have to do manual boarding pass. One thing I notice is that the frequent flying number is now marked out to only the first two digit/character. I don’t seem to understand why.
@Darren 58 minutes to get through and then about 5 minutes for the representative to fix the issue.
I can’t imagine how busy they are, after she told me it was fixed, she said to try to check in, but since it was so busy she was going to put me back on hold and check back with me in a couple minutes to see if it worked. Luckily I was able to confirm it was fixed while she was on the line.
On a side note, as a 1k do we have a dedicated number to call because I just called the normal United Reservations line.
Nevermind on the 1k question, just got my new card in the mail and see there is a number. Not sure if calling that line would have made the wait any less.
@Sam: Thanks for the additional info… glad to hear you could check-in after she fixed it. I received my card/credentials today, too.
On UA944 LAX – ORD this morning, half of the boarding pass didn’t work, the gate agent let them thru without checking the actual ticket/seat#. It seems to me that the gate agents weren’t prepared for the big day at all, they didn’t even announce the boarding procedure and let everyone board from the premier line.
ATC had probably verify UA flights too, UA944 was delayed for almost one hour for takeoff clearance. Tons of people missed their connecting flights.
One more interesting thing I noticed was that, they kept the count of empty seats. Dont know what for tho.
PS: I work in Burbank, good to know Darren is our neighbor 🙂
@failson: Eek. I hope everyone saves their boarding passes in case the flight doesn’t credit. Thanks for posting your experience, neighbor! 🙂
Annoying that BUR isn’t a valid departure city.
Have been on hold for 1.5hrs and still waiting, even with 1K number entered…
@Matthew: Ouch… I’m gonna wait a few days before calling to fix one of my reservations that does indeed need manual intervention.
@Tarpie: Thanks for the report! Nice to hear your travels today weren’t too bad. I fly next week & will be interested to see how it’s all going… I’m sorta jealous of everyone who flew today.
I’m waiting for my fourth leg of the day (BWI-DEN-ABQ and back MR). It has been smooth sailing all day, with boarding just being a bit slower than normal.
First surprise was that the Continental check-in area was deserted at BWI, but the combined United desk is within line of sight. The kiosks were still there and operational, but there were no agents.
I printed out all of my boarding passes because I figured mobile boarding passes would be down. UA printouts do not work today. Gate agents manually checked my name on the computer, until I got to ABQ and the agent just printed out new passes.
The new (to me) boarding process is somewhat confusing. As a 1K/1st class I do not board until after military and GS, but then ALL elites/premiers board at the same time. Might just be sloppy gate agents. I’m not traveling with a roll-aboard, so has not affected me today.
I asked to be put on the VDB list at the club and the agent seemed stymied by the new system. Not a big deal, and the only confusion I saw all day.
Next week I have a same-day turn to LAS booked on .bomb and all UA metal. I’ve got my fingers crossed that the new system allows 24 hour SDC so I can leave the day before. And with even more luck I hope to extend my stay by a day too.
I seem to have lost a few Systemwide upgrades– but maybe they will still turn up?
@Scott: Oh boy… I’d definitely be calling if upgrades went missing!
SFO was a complete zoo yesterday. Luckily I checked in online and did curbside drop. The lines were absolutely ridiculous, and people seemed to be pretty angry in general.
I had never seen so many irate, disgruntled grandmother’s in my life.
The one hiccup I saw was an E170 on a current reservation as a 767-300 and a 757 as a 737-900. Both of those went back to normal after a few hours though.
This has been one giant headache for us and anything but smooth sailing. First there was the message on our YYZ-BKK itineraries that there had been a “change” and we needed to call to have tickets reissued. I’ve been calling for the last 36 hours. I finally get someone on the phone after a 1hour wait who then keeps me on hold an additional 25 minutes doing whatever he’s doing. He comes back, says everything is fine. I log on after he hangs up, to find United has eaten the paid upgrade to First for the ORD-HKG leg we each purchased, even though the e-receipt still attached to the reservation shows we paid the fee and shows a seat assignment in First. However, the rest of the reservation site including seat picker shows no seat assigned for us on that leg and no way to re-select our old seats in First. Absolutely ridiculous this wasn’t planned better and stretched out over a longer period than a single overnight cutover. Ridicoulous. Given the other headaches we’ve had with this reservation including itinerary changes, equipment changes and vanishing seat assignments in the past, this may be the last time United gets any revenue from us whatsoever. Apparently $13,000 doesn’t buy very much these days.
@Matt: I had a similar message on one of my itineraries and it took me a while to get through late last night, too. My agent “fixed” it immediately, so I’m sorry to hear yours wasn’t as smooth. Hope you got your seats reassigned in First by now to HKG!