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Access Unimatic with Free AOL Accounts

aol logoWe are pleased to report to you that all United Airlines Flight Attendants are eligible for Free AOL accounts.

This means that if you are paying $9.99 to $24.90 a month for AOL access to Unimatic and Apollo, you will now receive this service for free if you are a broadband user or if you have another non-AOL dial-up internet service provider.

Remember that if you do begin using the free AOL account, you will no longer be able to use AOL Crew technical telephone support. In other words, if there is a connection problem or any other technical reason you are unable to access the Unimatic terminal window with your chosen broadband or other dial-up provider, you will not be able to utilize any AOL technical assistance.

If a flight attendant wants to use technical telephone support and customer service, they have another payment plan that they can choose with AOL that is $4.95 per month. You must agree to a contract for one year. The number for this is 800-605-4297. Call Member Services at 1-800-984-6207 and select the Billing Option when prompted. AOL will assist you in changing the account.

Important Points to Consider

There is confusion amongst flight attendants regarding the free AOL Unimatic accounts. It pertains to F/As who have never had any prior AOL Unimatic account whatsoever but want to now sign up to access home Unimatic for the first time using the free plan.

If you have never had a prior AOL account before:

  1. Visit http://free.aol.com/tryaolfree/thenewaol/index.adp

  2. Sign up for the free account.

  3. Once you've signed up, then visit the following page: http://airline.compuserve.com/ual/default.asp

  4. Once you arrive at that page for the first time, you will be validated using their name and company seniority.  Your screenname will be stored in United's internal LDAP database.  Then, you will be redirected to the AOL Crew Channel.  Thereafter, you will be able to use your new AOL screenname normally to access Unimatic via any of the following links.

If you don't perform Step #3 above, you will receive the following crapola error message:

compuserve error message

 

Remember that this information applies to those F/As without current AOL accounts.  If you already have a billed AOL account and want to switch to the free one, you won't need to change their profile once you've made the switch.

 

If you already have an existing paid AOL account

  1. Phone 1-800-984-6207. This will place you in an automated voice recognition system. Keep pressing the # key on your phone over and over again every few seconds or so until you hear the message, "Tell you what, let's find out why you are calling..." It will then give you some options. Choose Option 4.
  2. You will be transferred to an operator in India where you can brush up on your Hindi language skills. Tell them that you want to "switch your current AOL account (that you are paying a monthly fee for) over to the new free AOL plan."  REMEMBER: YOU MUST ALREADY HAVE AN AOL UNIMATIC ACCOUNT IN ORDER TO DO THIS!
  3. You will need to provide them with the last four digits of the credit card currently being billed, as well as your billing address. They will also ask you for a current address. I recommend giving them this if it's different, as they will send the confirmation letter of the account change to this address.
  4. They will then make the switch for you. The change is immediate.
  5. They will then ask you if you want some other 'add-on's'. This is the marketing portion of the call. Tell them you are late for a plane and that your taxi is honking their horn downstairs and you gotta run.
  6. They will lastly inform you that you just won a free CD-ROM from the Video Professor on how to operate a computer. No, I'm not kidding!  I ordered mine.
  7. You're all done. You can then access Unimatic/Apollo via any of the methods below:

Other Important Points

  1. You will receive no more technical support. If you are unable to connect to Unimatic because of any technical problem, you will be unable to contact AOL crew support. If a flight attendant wants to use technical telephone support and customer service, they have another payment plan that they can choose with AOL that is $4.95 per month. You must agree to a contract for one year. The number for this is 800-605-4297.
  2. You will need an alternate way to connect to the internet. Remember, you can't use the AOL software to dial out on your computer. You will need to connect via an alternate dial-up provider or broadband (high speed) connection.
  3. Bid Packages. Since many flight attendants are accustomed to obtaining their bids via the AOL Crew Channel, after they switch to the free AOL plan, they will need to either get them from SkyNet or visit the following external link to download the bids from the AOL Crew Channel: http://airline.compuserve.com/ual/attendant.asp

Bottom Line

If you are familiar with dial-up/broadband and comfortable without computer tech support for connecting to Unimatic, then the free AOL plan switch is the way to go. If, however, you've never surfed the web outside your AOL software, have never heard of Internet Explorer (it's the little blue 'e' thingy on your desktop), then you may want to stay with the paid plan.

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