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UNITED AIRLINES’ NEW WEB SITE

United
          Airlines’recently redesigned Web site was awarded best
          airline Internet site honors in Gomez Advisors’ recently
          released Spring Airline Scorecard. In their report,
          Gomez Advisors reported that several factors led to
          United capturing the first place ranking including
          outperforming the competition in the categories of on-site
          resources, customer relationship, business flyer and
          leisure flyer. United’s Internet site, www.ual.com, is the
          only airline Web site to make Gomez Advisor’s Top 15
          Travel Sites list.
Gomez Advisors called the new United site “one of the
          big stories” of its latest scorecard. “This new site has
          numerous easy-to-use features that will appeal to
          hardened frequent flyers as well as occasional travelers
          that may be new to the Web,” the Gomez evaluation
          said. Gomez specifically applauded ual.com for its
          prominent placement of the phone number for Web
          customer support, the “best seat selector online today,”
          the superior operation of the site’s new booking
          calendar, its running frequent flyer balances, and its
          full-service booking capabilities with all leading airlines,
          rental car companies and hotels.
In addition, Peppers and Rogers Group, a leader in the
          one-to-one marketing field, has placed ual.com in the
          “top 25 Web sites” for its customer interaction and
          customized experience. Peppers and Rogers reviewed
          over 400 Web sites from a broad range of industries,
          measuring 30 different online capabilities. In their
          February report, Peppers and Rogers stated the site “is
          well-organized so that customers can easily find the
          information that is of interest to them.”
“The multiple accolades that the new ual.com is receiving
          and the overwhelming response to our flight paging
          service are strong endorsements of the new design and
          capabilities of our Web site,” said Rick Collins, Director
          of Internet Marketing at United Airlines’ new
          e-commerce division. “It is also a reflection of the many
          excellent suggestions we received in customer focus
          groups before we revamped the site.”
A new flight paging service that debuted on the site in
          December has attracted heavy usage, indicating high
          consumer satisfaction with the site’s new functionality.
          United has already received more than 30,000 requests
          from customers who wish to be proactively informed of
          flight delays, cancellations and gate information on their
          personal computers, text-enabled cellular phones or
          alphanumeric pagers. A recent Chicago snowstorm
          prompted a high of 1,800 paging requests in just one
          day.
Web site sales at the carrier recently reached an all-time
          high of $2.7 million in one day, more than doubling the
          figure of just six months ago. Over 25% of United’s
          online users are Premier level or higher (they fly at least
          25,000 miles a year) in United’s Mileage Plus® frequent
          flyer program, a figure the airline attributes to its robust
          online reservations system and attractive features for
          frequent fliers. Visitors to the ual.com site topped 3.4
          million in February.
The revamped site offers faster access to the most
          popular features. Users can now research fares and
          schedules, check up-to-the-minute flight information, and
          access Mileage Plus® account information directly from
          the home page, reducing the number of clicks required to
          accomplish the most popular tasks. All functions have
          also been reorganized into four major categories on the
          home page to make it easy to find the desired page or
          section.
ual.com gives consumers the ability to purchase travel
          with over 500 airlines, book reservations with 45 rental
          car companies and 30,000 hotels worldwide, take
          advantage of discount travel offered through weekly and
          seasonal E-Fares?’ posted on the site, and register for
          the new flight paging service for digital notification of gate
          information, delays and cancellations on United
          Airlines-operated flights . In addition, United’s frequent
          flyers can use the site to track Mileage Plus account
          information, request upgrades and redeem miles for
          award travel online.

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