This morning I decided to check on the availability of paid upgrades from economy to economy plus on United for our trip to Hawaii. First I went to seatguru.com to see which seats were recommended and those to avoid. But when I entered my United flight number it did not appear in the seatguru.com list. So I went back into my email and searched for my reservation confirmation and compared it to my itinerary on United’s website. Two of our four flight numbers had been changed. My husband and I have two separate confirmation numbers and neither of us received any notification of these changes.

When we booked our flight we were departing around 9 a.m. Our new departure time was changed closer to 6 am. I love mornings, but 6 a.m. flights my husband and I both prefer to avoid. Also we had planned to take the train to the airport in the morning and not have to deal with airport parking at PHL. The trains do not run early enough to catch a 6 a.m. flight.

When I called United I was told the next available flight was at 3:30 pm. So I went on the United website and searched for availability and found a US Airways flight departing at 10 a.m. Then I called United again and after being put on hold several times and waiting about 20 minutes, our flight was changed.

Last month I wrote about my learning curve with United Airlines at this post. I understand airlines make changes to flight numbers and times, but doesn’t United think it is important to share that information with their passengers?