United’s “EasyUpdate” — not so easy with cancellations

Anyone who flies regularly and/or works in the travel industry has had plenty of head-scratching moments about the airlines. Greed — the desire to maximize revenue — is understandable. Incompetence can be accepted as well, although with today’s unemployment rate one wonders, how do some of these people have jobs. But some self-inflicted airline actions leave many of us speechless.

My family and I just experienced a travel saga with United’s “EasyUpdate Travel Alert System.” This, in theory, is a simple system to send United frequent travelers who sign up with a cellphone number or email address, messages about upgrades and problems with their flights. It’s designed to be an advanced warning system for both the good and and the bad, but on this trip it was simply ugly.

I was traveling with my family this week from Fort Lauderdale to San Francisco, via Chicago, with a United-Continental codeshare and a true United flight. In Fort Lauderdale, other than the usual kiosk confusion with code-share flights, which was resolved in five minutes by the gate agent, things went smoothly. Our connecting flight displayed “on time” just before we boarded our first flight to Chicago.

When we landed in Chicago, however, the fun started. Our connecting flight scheduled at 3:01 p.m. showed “canceled.” Our EasyUpdate system had sent no email messages. Worse, it turned out the flight had been canceled two hours earlier.

As we soon found out, there was no automatic rebooking generated, either. Fortunately, we are United Club (formerly Red Carpet Club) members. When we got to an agent in the Club her initial comment was that they should have rebooked us, but had not. (In this case, both my husband and I are 1ks, United’s second highest level, and our son is premier; in theory that should trigger better than average services.)

All nonstop flights showed full for the next two days. We ended up looking at options back via Charlotte and Atlanta (yes, I know, the wrong direction). But after some work with my laptop and the United agent’s computer, two seats suddenly appeared on a 4:15 p.m. American flight. We snatched those immediately for my husband and son. I was left standing by with United, until the agent found a cancellation at 5:26 p.m. So, it could have been worse.

To add insult to injury, once I was booked on the later 5:26 p.m. flight, the “delay” email messages started coming. Thankfully, they turned out to be wrong. First, I received an email delay until 5:46 p.m. because the plane was arriving late. I was paranoid at this point and sat near the departure monitor in the lounge, where at about 5 p.m. the flight suddenly went back to showing “on-time.”

Fortunately I was nearby and ran to the gate. Where a few minutes later, United emailed another message announcing the new time. Had I left the gate area to buy food or something after getting the first message, I could have missed the flight. In fact, some people may have done just that, as United did an open seat check for people who had checked in and not boarded. Eventually, a number of standby passengers got on before they closed the door at about 5:20 p.m.

Then United sent one more message at 5:42 p.m. while we sat at the gate, which I got upon landing when I turned my phone on, saying the plane would leave at 5:44 p.m., which it did.

The back and forth flight updates, while frustrating, were at least understandable. Somehow they got the plane ready earlier than expected. What I still don’t understand, is why the airline managed to send three email messages about a delay, but none about a cancellation. For that matter, why a cancellation didn’t trigger the automatic rebooking program.

As it turned out, when we got home United’s “EasyUpdate” had left an automatic message on our home phone saying the flight was canceled. The message noted we could check at a kiosk for information about our rebooked flights. Only problem — we were up in the air at the time. Plus, the home phone is clearly labeled in our records as a home phone (not that a cell message would have helped while we were flying anyway) and the United system never notified my travel agency, though theirs was the first-listed number for notifications.

Cancellations and delays are an unfortunate fact of life about travel. I don’t blame United for those. However, why have a system and not use it? Especially when both the “EasyUpdate” and “Automatic Rebooking” are features United likes to promote? I’m still a bit surprised that the cancellation didn’t trigger at least some human taking a look at the record, especially since two 1ks were involved.

For 2012, United is planning to merge their whole reservations system with Continental. With cancellations and delays, the pending system merger promises to be an even bumpier ride.