Hi Everyone, today we’re pleased to announce that we'll be making some important waitlist improvements for OnePass upgrade rewards. This is an exciting change, and one that we talked about at the last DO (you may also recall some of the more popular threads on the topic from our esteemed
ContinentalFan and
craz). In short, we agree with you, and we're putting the technology in place to make sure this works seamlessly. Here are details:
“Beginning June 17, 2008, Continental will improve its waitlist policy for upgrade rewards. Specifically, customers who have waitlisted for an upgrade in conjunction with a OnePass upgrade reward will be permitted to stand by on the day of departure whenever their waitlist does not clear in advance. Upon check-in, these customers will automatically be added to the upgrade standby list for any flights that were waitlisted. All day-of-departure standby upgrades will be cleared by a Continental airport representative at the gate once the flight has closed for check-in.
The service fees and mileage deduction for all OnePass upgrade rewards will be assessed at the time of request. For BusinessFirst upgrade rewards, all miles and service fees would be refunded if the BusinessFirst segment of the trip could not be upgraded. For all other upgrade rewards, miles would be refunded only when no segments of the trip could be upgraded. When applicable, service fees and mileage refunds occur 7 to 10 days after the trip.”
This is also posted at
continental.com > OnePass > Use Miles > Upgrade Rewards. Here are some important points worth noting:
- The current waitlist policy will remain in effect through June 16th – no exceptions!
- Once this new policy is implemented, service fees will be charged at the time you request the upgrade reward, even when your flights are waitlisted. This is in contrast to our current practice where we charge the service fee upon waitlist clearance. We will, however, allow these service fees to be refunded anytime in advance as long as the waitlist for the BusinessFirst segment has not yet cleared. This particular change won't apply retroactively - meaning if you've redeemed for a mileage upgrade reward prior to June 17th, then you still won't be charged until the upgrade waitlist clears. You will however, still be eligible to standby on the day of departure for the upgrade if your trip departs on or after June 17th.
- Waitlisted customers will have an upgrade priority that is just below paid First/BusinessFirst customers. When applicable, the waitlist priority (which is driven by the Elite status of the account from which the miles were redeemed), then fare class paid, then the timestamp of the original waitlist will be the tie-breakers.
- We will be implementing the same “automatic” day of departure upgrade standby for waitlisted free travel rewards, which we expect to launch late this year. In the mean time, this must be handled by one of our airport representatives upon check-in.
- BusinessFirst upgrade rewards must still be requested at least 24 hours in advance.
- Waitlist requests still must be handled by calling our contact center.
- Waitlists for series 0 rewards (travel within or between the 48 contiguous U.S., Alaska and Canada) are still only permitted for OnePass Elite members.
- For a brief period after this is implemented, we will not be printing "Added to First Class standby list" on our online, kiosk and curbside boarding passes. This will be corrected later this summer. In the mean time, to verify you've been added to the upgrade standby list, be sure to check on pda.continental.com/info or with a Continental airport representative.
- This will apply to all OnePass upgrade rewards, and will include all flights operated by Continental and Continental Micronesia.
If you have any questions, please post them here. As always, thanks as always for your feedback and great ideas. Please keep it coming.
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UPDATE 10/2/08 (click here) - Includes answers to frequently asked questions and issue reported, including examples of when complimentary Elite upgrades could trump reward waitlists.