Why isn’t United letting us merge our reservation? Did the policy change or did the rep make a mistake?
Context: for several years, my husband and I have booked tickets individually and then called United to merge the reservations so we can be seated together. We do this because I am allowed a discount due to my age. We fly about 15-20 times per year together, he travels consistently for work. We exclusively fly with United, and this is our booking process every single time.
Today, when I called to merge upcoming reservations, the rep said that’s not something they do and it’s not something they have ever done. Rep said that instead, I should wait until 24 hours before departure to call again and ask to be seated together if there are still seats available. I explained that we’ve done this consistently and have been able to merge the reservations so that my husband can manage our own seats without having to call a rep every time. Husband also usually gets upgraded, and those upgrades apply to both of us when they merge the reservations. We also frequently have to make flight changes because of our work schedules - usually multiple times for a single reservation. When they merge us into a single reservation, it’s so much easier for us to make the changes we need (and for me to get his economy plus seating). Rep insisted that reservations cannot ever be merged or linked together once they are booked and I must have misunderstood in the past. I am so confused!
I do see the beta feature they’ve rolled out to “link your trip.” I did this for a flight we had last month, and it didn’t work and actually made it more difficult for customer service to merge us. That also only works if one booking is in cash and the other is in miles, so doesn’t apply for the reservations I called about today.
Has anyone else experienced a change in whether United will merge reservations, or did I just get a rep who gave me incorrect info?
Edited to add: I have Silver, husband has Platinum. Discount is the Young Adults program.
Edited to answer: Called again and got an agent who was more familiar with this. United used to merge bookings (which we’ve always done over the phone to extend husband’s status to me for our seats) but they very recently did away with that process and instead made it an informal call-only service to link seats with status included. Based on some of these comments, it’s possible this was just a perk for Platinum.