US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - No upgrade for you! Next!!

I flew a trascon flight earlier this week, with a connection in PIT to my final destination.

I upgraded using three coupons for the long flight to PIT, but the connecting segment had not cleared when I check in at SAN. The agent put me on the waitlist and sent me on my way. At PIT, I took my coach seat, but right before pushback, I was called to the front of the plane by the gate agent. The agent said she had a seat for me but I would need to give her another coupon. I explained that I had already turned in the maximum required coupons for the journey in SAN. She replied that if the entire journey can't be cleared, I had to turn in another coupon for this segment. After some pleasant disagreement, and discovering that I didn't have another coupon with me, I was sent back to my coach seat and another passenger was upgraded.

In my past experiences with being upgraded on board the aircraft, I have never even been asked for a coupon. But the big mistake that I allowed the agent in SAN to make was not putting half of one coupon on my connecting boarding pass in the event of an upgrade. Although, according to the PIT gate agent's logic, this would not have been acceptable.

It was a short flight so I didn't make a big deal of it with the agent, but I think she was very misinformed on the rules. Couldn't she have looked at my record and seen that I upgraded using coupons on my first flight? What if I wanted to use miles to upgrade, or purchase upgrades at the gate?

This is a real issue on connecting transcons. Call Customer Service. They'll likely do something for you if you travel enough. At the very least, the coupon is worth 40 bucks.

The gate agent was simply wrong.

US Airways does upgrades by an entire journey from start to end, not based on each segment. Thus, a transcon will need the maximum of three certs to upgrade, and any connecting flight should be included.

In my experience, if there is a connection, the gate agent will attach the connection stub of the cert to the ongoing boarding pass. If, for example, you are using one cert for two flights, the second boarding pass will be marked with a special code to indicate that the cert has been lifted.

This is a major loophole and in direct disagreement with the Preferred upgrade rules. Unfortunately, this stuff happens, and it isn't possible to always carry the Elite rules book for each airline, to show to the agent. Call Customer Service at US Airways and let them know. I don't know what compensation you will receive, if any, but this should be ironed out.

Thanks for the advice.

I'll call CS and see what they say about the incident. Maybe in the future I should carry extra upgrade certs with me just in case I encounter another misinformed gate agent.

An supplemental question. In early August, I was to fly SEA-PIT-IAD-GSO. Upgraded SEA-PIT but not PIT-IAD and IAD-GSO as they were on commuter flights. Didn't fly those last legs because I took a bump and a free flight voucher. Flew regular PIT-PHL and couldn't talk the agent into letting me use the stubs for PHL-GSO. Anyway I can get the one upgrade voucher back?

terenz: I doubt it. I assume you gave up three coupons for the SEA-PIT upgrade.. SEA-PIT is 2119 miles and would require three coupons if flown on its own anyway.... The rest of the segments were 'free' since US doesn't require more than three certs... That's just my opinion and maybe US is more giving http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I had this same problem with Delta. I usually don't bother to write. This time I did. Response: sorry, blah, blah, blah...

The reality is they don't give a ****. Most carriers have decided we're all mooches when it comes to upgrades, and they're working overtime to figure out how to keep us out of the cabin. It's interesting. They might want to be careful. With most businesses in profit decline for third and fourth quarter, and the partial meltdown of the NASDAQ, they might have a few more available chairs than they think.