I've seen that forever and not just on United. I have thought it's something about the underlying SABRE system that many airlines use. Maybe someone here knows more.
I don't remember the precise details, but some airline website's password had restrictions at one point that made it super-obvious that they were internally converting alphanumeric passwords to digits based on the US telephone key mapping.
I remember thinking at the time it might ultimately have been due to SABRE (because I believe that's literally one of the oldest computer system still in use), and screen-scraping some telephone menu system depressingly seems like something someone would do for expediency.
I wouldn't be surprised if a system like that also mangles names.
> Usernames and passwords containing letters need to be translated to numbers to enter them in a Fidelity phone system (like FAST, or if you call a representative). Use your telephone keypad to convert the letters to numbers. There is no case sensitivity. Substitute an asterisk (*) for all special characters. https://www.fidelity.com/customer-service/need-help-logging-...
I asked a checkin agent to fix it but they said it will start rejecting my ID if they change it at all.
Maybe there’s simply the COBOL equivalent of the following somewhere:
if len(first) + len(second) + len(last) <= MAX_LEN_ON_TICKET:
first_name_on_ticket = first + second