US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Agents clamp down on North America upgrades

I don't know about the rest of you, but I've noticed a big crackdown on collection of North American upgrades. In the past, it was hit or miss as to whether certs. would be collected upon check-in, especially on a B or Y fare. Now, the agents make doubly sure to collect them, write in big letters 'UPG' for the gate agent(or something similar), and staple them at least 3 times. I actually joked and said "I don't think they'll stay attached!" after she slammed 4 staples into the boarding pass. She said that Corporate has really come down on the gate agents for not being more diligent on collection of certs, plus the fact that people are known to remove their certs after they've been stapled!

I'm also seeing an increase of gate agents coming into the F cabin prior to take-off to collect certs, so it appears they are doing a 'quick' audit of the collected boarding passes before the doors close.

UA merger or not, I'm sure we can expect electronic upgrades down the road.

Not sure if this has been covered, but if you've already had your reservation upgraded and a first class seat assigned, can you check in with the "E-kiosks"? And if you can, do they really ever ask for the certificate (unless they come onto the plane!)?

I've been scared to try the E-kiosk on upgraded segments out of fear that I'll somehow lose the upgrade - and the agents I've asked seem to have no idea how the machines work. I think they're too busy learning how to staple an upgrade coupon a minimum of 4 times.

My tickets last month had "UPG" somewhere on the boarding pass. Was I in First? No. Was I Elite? Not then, but I am now.

I pull the same crap with Hertz - I remove the coupon and give it back only if they ask. 99% of the time when the agent in the lot gives you the receipt, they never even ask.

[This message has been edited by TimCLE (edited 06-24-2001).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by BeantownFlyer:
Not sure if this has been covered, but if you've already had your reservation upgraded and a first class seat assigned, can you check in with the "E-kiosks"? And if you can, do they really ever ask for the certificate (unless they come onto the plane!)?

I've been scared to try the E-kiosk on upgraded segments out of fear that I'll somehow lose the upgrade - and the agents I've asked seem to have no idea how the machines work. I think they're too busy learning how to staple an upgrade coupon a minimum of 4 times.</font>

It won't let you check in.

Since starting to fly US last year, I've only had certs not collected twice. Once, on an ATL-CLT-GSO trip where I checked in at the gate in ATL, and the other just recently on an ORD-CLT flight, but in that case we got to the airport early, discovered our flight was cancelled, booked down to the gate of the flight that was boarding and about to push back, and asked if we could get on the flight. At the last minute they cancelled four FC passengers seats (it was departure time exactly when they did that), and gave us two boarding passes for FC without collecting the certs. In that case, I'm not sure if it was the rush or a courtesy since our original flight was cancelled.

Ditto Chairman's. We don't need certs, but the kiosk will not do a check-in anyway. It appears to be linked to the change in Class in the res itself. Once they manually upgrade from K, V, etc. to G, the system requires a human to look at the record and issue boarding passes.

I have had to give in certs for every trip over the past 2 years, no slipups by agents, though I am diligent about waiting for them to ask. Now actually removing the stapled upgrade, well, I couldn't bring myself to do that. Not asking is one thing, but YMMV.

Now the darn kiosks, I wish they at least gave you the 1000 mile credit for trying.
I swish my card everytime I see one. Since my travel is split between departing BOS and PVD, I am only at a kiosk (BOS) 6 or 7 times since kiosk inception. All of my BOS trips have been advance upgrades, and each time I have tried the kiosk, only to garner a cryptic "cannot process" or "cannot find" error message. No miles show up for the attempts either. Of course if there was a kiosk in PVD, where armies of CP's snatch up FC way in advance, I would have those 1000 miles in no time!

I feel bad for the agents processing the upgrade. The whole procedure of stapling to BPS and writing ticket info on each cert, twice (the main cert and perfed stub) on upgrades with connections, is a pain for the US Agent and has many loopholes for mixup.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by unixguy:
I have had to give in certs for every trip over the past 2 years, no slipups by agents, though I am diligent about waiting for them to ask. Now actually removing the stapled upgrade, well, I couldn't bring myself to do that. Not asking is one thing, but YMMV.

Now the darn kiosks, I wish they at least gave you the 1000 mile credit for trying.
I swish my card everytime I see one. Since my travel is split between departing BOS and PVD, I am only at a kiosk (BOS) 6 or 7 times since kiosk inception. All of my BOS trips have been advance upgrades, and each time I have tried the kiosk, only to garner a cryptic "cannot process" or "cannot find" error message. No miles show up for the attempts either. Of course if there was a kiosk in PVD, where armies of CP's snatch up FC way in advance, I would have those 1000 miles in no time!

I feel bad for the agents processing the upgrade. The whole procedure of stapling to BPS and writing ticket info on each cert, twice (the main cert and perfed stub) on upgrades with connections, is a pain for the US Agent and has many loopholes for mixup.</font>

You feel sorry for the 800 mile awards? Hah! I did a trip to California recently using a 20,000 mile award. The trip was three segments in each direction. The agent had to hand write the actual "red" coupons for every segment - it took about 20 minutes.