Legacy United Res Agents Require Re-Education on the post-3/3/2012 MileagePlus Award Rules...

...especially on the rules pertaining to the use of waitlists for award seats on United flights.

Many legacy United reservations agents -- in the headquarters city of Chicago, of all places -- continue to believe that the old United rule of "no waitlists when partner flights are in the booking" still applies. This rule was abolished as a quaint artifact upon the March 3, 2012, conversion to the new MileagePlus. I've had to deal with agents, and one supervisor, who blocked waitlisting under their erroneous beliefs, prompting subsequent time-consuming calls with legacy Continental agents to complete what are otherwise quick and painless transactions.

With United now actively pushing customers to use UA metal flights more often for award redemptions, the need for agent re-education on the liberalized waitlisting rule grows more urgent with each passing day.

 

HeathrowGuy,
How can your posting above get posted to the United Airlines website? It would seem to me that this sort of misunderstanding by the United Airlines reservation agents needs to be fixed - tout de suite!
Newscience

 

Is the rule documented on the website? I need to call in about a reservation and it might be helpful to quote the rule verbatim.

 

Sadly, no.

UA seems to have chosen the path of not publishing the rules in hopes that no one notices or comes to expect things from them.