What determines your boarding zone number?

(I don't think its check-in time because I checked in just 1 hour before flight and got a Zone 1).

What determines your boarding zone number?

(I don't think its check-in time because I checked in just 1 hour before flight and got a Zone 1).

Here is how I understand it, but with the computers, anything is possible..
Zone 1 - Elites (US Prefered Gold, Plat, CP, *Alliance Gold) and some others in windows
Zone 2 - Elites (US Silver, *Silver, Credit Card holders) and people in other certain windows..

then Zone 3-7 are windows to aisles. Usually if you are NOT Elite and sitting in the aisle, you are getting a high Zone number.

Zone 1 = First Class, Gold, Plat, Chairman's.
Zone 2 = Silver, CC Holders, (an others ?)
Zone >=3 = Everyone else by location of seating I think

Edit: I think LAX1K's is more accurate. Beat me by a minute :-)

Does anyone know of any other criteria that help differentiate between zones 3-7? Yesterday I was waiting to board a CLT-BWI flight and had a couple next to me ask the exact same question posed in this thread. I started to explain what I thought was the correct answer (see LAX1K to AmWest), but then they showed me their boarding passes. They had seats 21B and C with zones 5 and 3, respectively, IIRC. Obviously it would have made sense for a window seat in row 21 of a 737 to get zone 3, but an aisle? Where the adjacent middle seat gets zone 5?

Of course, it would be thoroughly unsurprising for this to be caused by a computer problem . . . .

This article discusses how US Air (and other carriers) determines boarding http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/business/14boarding.html

All the computer zone boarding planning in the world doesn't do a lick of good if GAs don't enforce it.

I have a friend who always gets Zone 2. He does not have, nor has he ever had any status with US, and only flies maybe 2-3 times a year. Neither of us can figure it out.

That is how it is suppose to work.. but I agree it is nutty now..

I had a coworker who got Zone 1 (has zero status with US Airways).. I also have seen UA * GOLD get Zone 5. And there is no rhyme or reason.... for some reason, I think the computers are being wacky recently...

Maybe there is more of a random factor to keep us guessing?? :)

I have a friend who always gets Zone 2. He does not have, nor has he ever had any status with US, and only flies maybe 2-3 times a year. Neither of us can figure it out.

Your friend must have inadvertantly said "yes" to one of the hawkers chasing him down in the terminal to sign up for a US-sponsored credit card. This gets you zone 2.

Last year when I had zero status, I had Zone 1 every time I got the bulkhead seats (Row 4) on the A319. A couple of weeks ago I was upgraded and had Zone 2 on the boarding pass even If I was on the front cabin.

It is quite simple really. US Airways east has now adopted the America West way of boarding, which was based of a series of studies done for HP by Arizona State University. The idea is to minimize people having to get up and move for other people, and also of people running into each other by people who block the aisles.

Zone 1 is always going to be first class, elites (excluding silvers), and anyone seated in the bulkhead seats in coach (so they have room to stow their bags). Zone 2 will have your silvers, star alliance golds, the last row of coach, and the last few rows of windows in coach.

From this point on, with zones 3-7 or 3-8, depending on the size of the aircraft, boarding takes on the look of a reverse pyramid. If this confuses you draw yourself a row of seats 3-3 and you'll see what is meant. But basically windows toward the back go first, then middles toward the back and windows toward the middle... and they keep creeping up until lastly they get aisles toward the front to board.

Agents on the west are very much familiar with this boarding style, so you will commonly hear them make announcements to board with the lowest zone if the passengers are traveling in a party of two or more and seated together. This doesn't mess anything up as the two parties are sitting together, hence they won't be running into anyway either.

If you're ever traveling through PHX, I know HP had little diagrams on all of their podiums for the people who don't have zones that come up and ask what zone they should be in. If they agent cares, they will refer to this diagram which is color coded and clearly shows how boarding is done.

It's a somewhat unique way, but when done right, and when the gate agent doesn't call a whole bunch of zones at once, it works really well.

^ Of course what makes it a lot better when people don't crowd the podium once they announce Zone 1. Sometimes you'd think it was Southwest with all those people blocking the door.

Zone 2 - Elites (US Silver, *Silver, Credit Card holders) and people in other certain windows.

Unless I've either been unlucky or they've recently changed things, I've never had anything higher than zone 3 as a *Silver... of course, I tend to be unlucky!

Edit: stupid me - I just checked my last "outbound" and had zone 2 listed on one boarding pass. The problem: the flight was cancelled and I never actually flew this one (reroute on AC/UA)

Flew FLL-DCA this morning and noticed the new boarding process.

As a UA 1K/*G, I had always managed to board under Zone 1. This morning my boarding zone was Zone 3...sitting in 10A

Flew FLL-DCA this morning and noticed the new boarding process.

As a UA 1K/*G, I had always managed to board under Zone 1. This morning my boarding zone was Zone 3...sitting in 10AWas your UA MP number printed on the BP?

Was your UA MP number printed on the BP?



yes, it is printed on the BP.

In the past the number was printed at the bottm of BD; this time th enumber appears below "From: Fort Lauderdale" and above "To: Washington National".

I helped my coworker OLCI today. She was in an aisle, first row after the bulkhead on a HP 737-300. Incredibly, she was issued a Group 1 BP even though her reservation did not contain a frequent flyer number and she was on a rock-bottom fare. BTW, I refered her to UA and had the CP desk add her ff# after the bps were printed.