Merger update: Significant United changes
United and Continental have finally merged. As I pointed out in an earlier post, united.com and continental.com, the websites also merged over to the new site this past weekend. The new site is based on the original continental.com. In fact, most of the operational ascpects of the new United are based on Continental. They are using Continentals operating license, using Continentals reservation system, etc. Looks like all that’s left of United is the name, the headquarters and Economy+ seats (which is not a bad thing to keep at all).
In this post I was going to start documenting some important changes to United, the website and its offerring and give a primer on how to find things. Fortunately for lazy me, several other bloggers have beat me to the gun and already done a great job doing this. Here is what I have found as a result of my ‘extensive research’:
Seth the Wandering Aramean has done the most analysis:
How to find upgrade inventory?
Some thoughts and observations from Ben from travelsort.com:
United Continental Merger Integration: What you need to know?
From Frequently Flying:
The new United Upgrade and Award fare buckets
Smooth sailing for United Airlines today? – posted the day of the change over
And a good one from Mommy points:
Suggestions for the Continental/United merger
My personal experience with the new United Airlines:
I flew on United this past weekend. I was on a flight this Sunday and my name was not even on the Upgrade list. It did not really matter as the First Class cabin was sold out the night before, but I was concerned that my name did not even make it to the list. I hops this was just a temporary glitch.
I am seeing award availability on united.com that was not showing up on the old united.com. Has StarNet blocking gone away?
One big plus (or +++) is that one can now book multi-city or one-way StarAlliance awards on the site. The old united.com did not allow this and one had to pay a $100 fee to book such awards thru a reservation agent. Not any more!
How has your experience been with United the new company and United.com the site? Share by leaving a comment below.
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I’ve had a few flights on United since Saturday without any issues with the flights themselves. My premier qualifying miles from old UA were in my account and then disappeared. My segments still show though. Has anyone else encountered this?
The continental site has always had the full *A partner search, that is the biggest plus to the new site (well really old, but new united.com). There was a very small hiccup in one of my receipts with regard to the equipment, but I DM’d United and within a few hours that issue was fixed.
I’m not sure if you looked on the list before or after checkin, but when I had a CO flight, my name didn’t show up on the list until after I checked in, so that may be the issue.
I’ve had several flights, all of which cleared upgrades (EWR-IAH, IAH-SFO, SFO-IAH, etc.). I haven’t had any problems.
Interesting story…I sat next to an older woman who apparently doesn’t fly much (ever?) who was bumped from a flight last Saturday to a late flight on Sunday. They put her in first, but didn’t tell her. She showed up confused about her seat and quite flustered by the whole process. She ended up in the window seat next to me. The flight attend appologized to me, and I was a bit concerned, but she turned out to be nice once settled, and it was great seeing her reaction to the free drinks and elaborate dinner. She didn’t even try to pretend like many of us do I think. It reminded me of my early days of upgrades…