Markets

United Removes Website Hold Feature

By Brett Snyder

Updated on: June 8, 2009 / 10:09 AM EDT / MoneyWatch

United has quietly removed the ability to hold an itinerary without purchasing on its website. This customer-friendly feature was a good feature, but according to United, it was doing a disservice to customers in general. How is that possible? Well, I'll let United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski explain:

The majority of tickets that were held on united.com were often not purchased, and while being held, they could have otherwise been bought by somebody else who was shopping for a low fare.

So it sounds like United is using the "abuse it, you lose it" explanation. If people were really just holding and not purchasing most of the time, then I can see why United wouldn't want it there. But is it really worth the customer inconvenience? According to Robin, it's not really that inconvenient.

All tickets, including those purchased on united.com, may be canceled within 24-hours, which largely accomplishes the same thing as holding a ticket. You may go to united.com to cancel a reservation or call us and a refund will be applied at that time by speaking with a reservations agent.

This is true in theory, but it does require a proactive effort from the customer to cancel unlike the previous option. Of course, that's better for United, but it is still less customer-friendly. But there is still one group that will be particularly unhappy about this. Those who need to reserve a ticket in order to pay for it in person (eg with voucher payment). Now, they won't be able to do it online anymore. They'll have to call reservations to have it held.

According to Robin, that's a very small group, and they will just have to make the reservation over the phone before arranging payment. So is this a huge change? No, not really. It's a relatively minor annoyance for some, but it seems like an unnecessary change on United's part.

If the reservations were truly only being held for 24 hours and then canceled, then it's a very friendly feature that possibly could have been managed better to reduce the amount of inventory being held without intent to purchase. They could have run flight firming technology to delete bogus or multiple reservations while still allowing those customers who really needed the hold to use it. But they chose a different route.