Phoned the GP line the other day to upgrade my dad's ROC-PHL-LGW segments to Envoy.

They told me I could either have the 30k miles deducted now, or I could wait and call back later. But the agent told me I had to call no later than five days prior to departure date or else my dad would get bounced back to coach.

Does this make any sense? Wouldn't they normally just deduct the miles once he flies? Is it possible to be confirmed in Envoy one day and then get bumped back to coach the next?

Is there some freakishly small chance the system will just "forget" to take the miles?

Thanks.
--Alex

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ayb1:
Phoned the GP line the other day to upgrade my dad's ROC-PHL-LGW segments to Envoy.

They told me I could either have the 30k miles deducted now, or I could wait and call back later. But the agent told me I had to call no later than five days prior to departure date or else my dad would get bounced back to coach.

Does this make any sense? Wouldn't they normally just deduct the miles once he flies? Is it possible to be confirmed in Envoy one day and then get bumped back to coach the next?

</font>

Alex

When we booked our trip to FCO over christmas they deducted the whole 480,000 miles ( six of us in Row 1 http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif) at the time we booked them. I'm assuming that since it is an award they would do the same thing.

We had a very short time to book the tickets and deduct the miles (seems like it was less than 5 days) when the reservation was made. Are you sure you don't have to ticket the upgrade within 5 days or loose the upgrade?

[This message has been edited by longing4piedmont (edited Dec 14, 2003).]

When I upgrade with miles, they have been deducting the miles at time of request and U puts an electronic certificate with your PNR to support the upgrade.

I get the same thing. The deduction from my DM acct is almost immediate.

Question: can you check in a the kiosk? I always have trouble and then I get attitude from the agent for complicating things by being in F. As well, I can never web check in.

I used to think US quite technically-advanced but it seems they're quite incapable with anything other than a straight ticket.

Excuse me for being one of your few good customers that I have enough miles to sit up there! Why does it have to be so difficult?

------------------
--Wishing for you safe travels and for me Row 1.

You can't use the kiosk for international check-in as the counter agent needs to see your passport.

AYB - I was just told exactly the same thing as you. The wife and I reserved FC seating for PHL-FCO (using miles to upgrade). It turns out that I was 2,300 miles short and the operator told me not to worry about it. She said that the FC seats were ours as long as I had enough miles and called to have them deducted at least 5 days before the flight (5 months from now).

If I had the miles now, they would be deducted now. Since I don't, the seats are still mine, but I have to take the initiative and call to 'finalize' the upgrade. She said the only way I could lose the FC seats is if I forget to call, or don't accrue an additional 2,300 miles (yeah right, this month's Visa will take care of that, and then some!!) at least 5 days before the flight.

Weird system, I was told that it only works this way for international upgrades.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by batboy:
She said that the FC seats were ours as long as I had enough miles and called to have them deducted at least 5 days before the flight (5 months from now).</font>

Whew! For a minute I felt like I was in my own little world...

The thing is that I actually had the miles.. but she gave me the option. I suppose I should have told her to just take the miles.. but I felt like there was something fundamentally wrong with that. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif
--Alex

I'm confident that the FC seats are mine (checked USAir.com seating charts to make sure they were greyed out), but I'm probably going to go ahead and have them deduct the miles anyway. Leaves no chance for me to forget or them to give those seats away. Just a little peice of mind. Weird system though.

Knowing my luck, we both spoke to the same operator who was smoking crack or something and had no idea what she was talking about.