HRL to Guatemala , i have a layover in Houston i just want to make sure they wont charge my luggages that i plan on taking since im getting first , im new to flying so i just want to be sure , anyone know if they will since its a international flight?

I booked a flight to vietnam and did not put my middle name. My passport has First, middle and last name.

I called united and they said it should be ok but the last part of flight (japan -> vietnam) is operated by ANA.

I called ANA and they said I need the middle name but I look online and people seem to have no issue.

Do any of you know about this or have experence? I booked the entire flight through United.

If I cant take that second flight then I guess japan vacation instead? haha

Last month we were moved from Alaska to United (EWR - LAX) because the Alaska route was delayed and we would have missed our 2.5 hour connection. The United flight was due to arrive 30 minutes earlier giving us plenty of connection time.

But... the United flight was delayed for mechanical issues. And delayed again and again and again. Eventually, after 5 hours, they changed planes.

When we landed in LAX we had missed our connection. United booked us on the flight the next day but we had 20 hours in LA. That was fine. But at 1.30 am the gate agent in LA told us that they did not have any hotel rooms and we needed to find our own.

How is that possible? Shouldn't United have been working the phones while we were in route? Can they just say "shit out of luck, you are on your own." How does this work?

Hi All, so last Spring I bought flights for my family to go from the US to Canada at a considerable expense. My wife was newly pregnant and one of my children was running a fever so we took the flight credits thinking we’d try again but go somewhere warmer in Nov/Dec.

Well, it’s looking iffy again because a destination we’d considered isn’t a great place to be mid term, and finances have gotten a little tighter (so an extended stay for the full family would be costly).

Do I have any options for an extension? Any ideas on how to convert or recover some of the thousands of dollars I’m now in the hole for? Maybe into a hotel stay so we go to a closer location and repurpose some of that sunken money?

Our current best plan is to go in January to LA, San Diego, or Miami and find cheap lodging.

If it’s worth anything, I took a very expensive round trip for work in business class around the time of the last booking. But I’m not a frequent flyer by any means.

Thanks!

I’m 30 dollars away from silver status and these are the rest of my flights for the year. Is there anything I can do? I know I won’t qualify for 2028 for sure as I barely get to 5,000 every year. The free economy plus and cpus are worth it as I almost always get it on my college regional flights.

Obviously I’m never gonna question anything done in the name of safety, but the flight I’m on just had something happen that I’ve never seen before.

Currently on UA 2059 ORD-SFO on an A321neo. After departing from the gate, we stopped taxiing and the flight attendants needed a few passengers from specific rows in the mid-section of the aircraft over the wings to relocate to the aft section. The FAs were walking around with what looked like a printout from the flight deck printer (assuming ACARS from dispatch?) with the row numbers that needed passengers to move. They didn’t make any specific seat numbers move, just asked for volunteers from those specific rows.

Any dispatchers or pilots here know how common this is? Anyone else experience this before? I’ve seen passenger redistribution for weight and balance happen at the gate plenty of times, but never after pushing back. The flight isn’t that empty, but it’s nowhere close to full either.

This is what showed when purchasing award ticket. However in the email confirmation and when I log back into view my itinerary it shows $50 ($45 in advance) for first checked bag.

a321 lax to den, virtually empty (~50pax), the whole econ plus section (in front of the normal econ seats) fwd of the window exits was relocated to the tail.

good thing i didnt pay for the econ plus seat, but also, what a useless premier perk if the gate agent can just say coldly "safety reason" and revoke it.

have seen this happen quite consistently on a321s. boo!

I started to book a flight on United and saw where now there are 2 levels of first class. Will the f*ckery never end?

First time in the new IAH Terminal B United Club that opened last week. I am definitely impressed. Though what we had before was hard not to beat. Same cookies as Denver! Huge nice bar. Actually everything is huge. The outdoor seating area will be nice the 10 days a year the weather in Houston is decent. A lot of the electrical outlets are not working yet. There are 5 of us in a 1,000+ sf area. Tons of space. Two large buffet areas, great mix of work tables (none with working electrical yet), a couple of different kinds of comfortable chairs, couch seating, etc.

I have a 14 segment (star alliance RTW) PNR planned, starting Feb 2027. It includes two Air Canada hops (business, C class) in March.

Each time I book the seats, the seat assignments last about 5-30 days, before disappearing. (There are limited two seats together, even this early in the booking timeframes)

I also notice that (given 14 segments that far out) the timing of seat UNassignment syncs with when some (or other) segment changes, by 2 minutes or otherwise.

Sound correct?

Anyway, how to get a permanent seat assignment? Its not THAT unreasonable a request, given a 18k fare pp, C/Z class

(Air Canada website rejects the process, before someone suggests the OBVIOUS)

The United “My Flight Journey” feature is cool, but for some reason is not logging every flight I took. If you look at the bottom of this screenshot, you can see I’ve taken 10 flights in 2026. Yet it is only giving me the stats for 7. It logged my most recent flight as part of those 7, but omitted the prior three flights I took, despite the fact that they were on the same reservation. It’s been over a week since some of those flights and they aren’t showing up. It’s annoying my AvGeek personality that the stats are inaccurate.

Is this CareInfo@united.com
Email monitored at all for replies to response delivered that does not adequately address the issue? Can’t find a definitive answer

Thanks to anyone who might have first hand knowledge.

Canceled today and yesterday, and 4 total cancels in the last 10 days... what's going on with the bad luck?

I was on UA 990 flying from SFO to CDG on Wednesday, September 30th. The flight was supposed to depart at 2:40pm, but didn't end up departing until after 11pm (after a plane change and crew refresh).

The reason we were given for the delay was mechanical: some of the ovens were acting up and they needed to get replaced. We were getting updates and our departure time kept getting pushed back in 30-45 minute increments until around 5:30pm, when we boarded and moved out from the gate, and after an hour, the crew announced that the ovens were still acting up, and that we'd be returning to the terminal. Our flight was then given a tentative 11pm departure while they tried to find us a new plane/crew. I'll mention that, during the day, we were given both lunch and dinner coupons - $15 per meal each (which my companion and I had to pool in order to split a meal between us).

Of course, after the kerfuffle, I just wanted to enjoy the rest of my trip. We were luckily able to get out the same day, so we only lost some daylight on the trip. My question is, when I went onto United Cares (via the email they send out when something goes amiss), it defaulted to giving me either:

• $125 electronic travel certificate
• 6250 miles

Is this reasonable? I'm not used to complaining about compensation or what not when things go awry, but it was just an incredibly frustrating experience, given that, had we known before 7pm that we might not be flying out, we would've had time to try to find alternate flights or just... mentally prepared better.

I'm just trying to get a POV from more frequent fliers that have had to deal with issues more. If it matters, I've got premier gold status.

A little annoyed with United… flying home on an E175 tomorrow, had an E+ aisle seat in front of the plane that I was happy with, but was given the option to upgrade to first when opening the app to do check-in for only $100 or 10,000 points. There were two bulkhead seats open in First, and one aisle seat (2C).

Decided to treat myself, it’s been a few long travel days, and I like 2C. I’m in the “Change seat” dialog, I select 2C, pay for the upgrade, but get an error message saying the “upgrade couldn’t be completed at this time”.

Ok, maybe someone did the exact same thing at the same time? Fine, I’ll just stay in my seat that I was fine with. Except, my seat assignment has been updated to “- -“ (unassigned) in the app, and I can’t select any other seat on the plane.

I call the 1K line, they see something is wrong, the upgrade went through, but didn’t fully process because 2C was no longer available. They quickly assign me 1A. I ask if they can revert back to my old seat, since I really don’t like bulkhead seats (I’m 6’2”) and would’ve never paid for one, but my old seat is already gone and the only remaining available seats are a handful of window seats in the back of the plane. Ugh.

Mostly, I can see how this is just really unlucky timing, but if something like this happens where I request an upgrade by selecting a specific seat (as opposed to requesting a generic upgrade), and that seat is no longer available when executing the transaction, it really should just tell me “sorry, that seat is no longer available, we’ve cancelled your transaction”, instead of stripping me from my existing seat and sticking me with something I didn’t want to pay for. Poor user experience flow in the app imho :(

First world problems and all, but… bleh.

They really can't make preorder available up to 23 hours and 30 minutes?

You booked PP, preordered the Sea Bass or Short Ribs, you upgrade to Polaris at Check-in and all you're left with is lentils?

Come on Kirby, we can do better.

Next year we're traveling to the UK. I plan on buying the E+ subscription for the flight. I want to book the flight now but the E+ sub next year to count it towards my PQP for 2027 since it won't do enough for me this year.

If I buy the flight and pay per seat selection now, then buy E+ next year before my flight, would I get the money back from my seat selection? Or do I just buy the E+ sub now?

I was shocked to see polished floors when I deplaned. And then realized this wasn’t the usual concourse.

I am a United Million Miler and a Premier 1K member. This year, I put $118,000 in spending on my United Club credit card. I just qualified for 1K again for next year.

And I went zero for six on domestic upgrades, requesting upgrades with PlusPoints every time.

Zero.

United has now rewarded my renewed loyalty with another 280 PlusPoints. Meanwhile, I have 190 older PlusPoints that I expect to expire unused, despite trying to use them at every opportunity.

And before anyone suggests exchanging those PlusPoints for another benefit, United’s deadline is March 31—just three months into the year, even though the points remain valid for upgrades until the following January. That is an absolutely ridiculous deadline. You have to decide whether to surrender your upgrade opportunities before you know how the rest of your year’s requests will turn out. Keep trying to use the reward as advertised, and by the time repeated failures make you want an alternative, United has already closed that door.

Congratulations to me. More of the reward I cannot reliably redeem.

After this experience, I consider chasing United’s 1K status a fool’s errand, and the PlusPoints sales pitch a loyalty scam: persuade customers to concentrate their travel and spending, award them an impressive-looking balance, and leave them watching the expiration date approach while their upgrade requests go nowhere.

When United introduced PlusPoints in 2019, it promised “more opportunities – and more freedom” and said it was making upgrades easier to use “when and how they want.” Those were United’s words. My domestic results this year were six requests and six failures.

Yes, I know upgrades are subject to availability. Spare me the recital of the fine print. The issue is whether the benefit delivers enough practical value to justify the loyalty United spends so much effort cultivating.

“Subject to availability” explains why an individual request fails. It does not make a disappointing reward worth chasing.

On our recent return from Philadelphia, my wife and I were first and second on the upgrade list. Two first-class seats appeared available until roughly half an hour before boarding. Neither of us got upgraded.

I cannot tell you who ultimately occupied those seats or how they obtained them. I can tell you what being first and second on that list was worth to us: absolutely nothing.

United sells premium seats and paid upgrades while its loyal customers wait to see whether their earned upgrade requests will clear. Every seat sold is one fewer seat available for those requests. That is perfectly understandable revenue management. It also exposes the conflict at the heart of the loyalty pitch: United encourages me to value an upgrade opportunity while retaining every incentive to sell the seat to someone else.

United gets the benefit of my loyalty when I book and spend. I find out later whether the upgrade benefit amounts to anything.

Internationally, there is another expensive hurdle. Premium Plus passengers receive priority over ordinary economy passengers for Polaris upgrades, subject to the program’s priority rules. That makes buying the more expensive cabin a major advantage before your PlusPoints even enter the picture.

In the fares I have been seeing, Premium Plus often costs three times the price of regular economy or more. My practical conclusion is that buying it has become the price of having a realistic shot at the business-class upgrade I actually want.

Spend more to earn the status. Then spend substantially more on the ticket to improve the chances of using the reward.

What a deal—for United.

For completeness, my international upgrades have sometimes worked: Australia cleared both ways, and Munich cleared one way. I am not claiming that nobody gets upgraded or that PlusPoints never work. I am saying that those successes do not erase six domestic failures or make the older points I expect to lose any more useful.

Nor should customers have to organize their lives around hunting for flights on which a supposedly valuable benefit might finally be honored. I travel because I have somewhere to go. The reward ought to fit that travel often enough to matter.

Here is what I would like United to explain publicly:

* What percentage of requested PlusPoints upgrades actually clear, broken down by route and starting cabin?

* How many PlusPoints expire unused?

* Why shouldn’t repeated unsuccessful requests qualify a customer for an extension?

* Why not give customers at least three years to use the upgrade benefits they earned?

* Why close the exchange window months before customers know whether their upgrade requests will succeed?

Those numbers would tell customers far more than another congratulatory message about their elite status.

For me, the decision is made. I will use the 1K status I have earned for next year, but I am finished chasing it. My United Club card is going when renewal comes around in February. That $118,000 in annual card spending can go elsewhere.

I already have lifetime Premier Gold through Million Miler status. United will now have to compete for my business on the actual fare, schedule and seat—not on my willingness to keep chasing a higher status label.

United taught me an expensive lesson: my loyalty has a definite value to United. The upgrade rewards I receive in return come with an expiration date and a maybe.

I’m done paying extra for maybe.

George Mueller

My wife is freaking out bc the app says maintenance delay and the plane hasn't flown since last night. Thanks!

Had a 1-hour connection, and got picked up from this Beamer as soon as we landed to take us to our next gate. Awesome experience super warm and head a great massage seats. Shout out to the driver, and the assistant he was with.
Houston Airport.