US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - upgrade pecking order

I did a search and didn't find any information about the priority of upgrades in the age of e-upgrades.

Presumably all of the CP who have requested upgrades are competing with each other at the 7-day window. Do the upgrades get applied in the order they were requested? For instance, if you request an upgrade for a flight a year from now, are you pretty much guaranteed to get it if anyone with your status gets it?

Also, how do waitlists work? It seems there are two different waitlists, one for before the day of travel and one for the day of travel. It also seems that you don't automatically roll over from one to the other. Is this correct? Within the waitlist, presumably it goes by fare basis first, then by status, and finally by the time of the request? When somebody cancels, does the first person on the waitlist get a confirmed seat immediately? If so, then a GP could get the seat even though a CP came along later? This seems so complex...

And now apparently we find out that the Club representatives can bypass this whole process?

As far as the 7 day window, I asked a CP liason once and they told me that basically a list gets printed out at 12:01 am and someone manually processes all of the upgrades. It doesn't really matter where you are on the list, just how the person processes the upgrades. They suggested that if I really wanted the upgrade, I should call at 12:01am and request it. This would ensure that if there were a bunch of CP's getting upgraded for the same flight, then I would be the first.

As far as the wait list is concerned, one of the waitlists is for before the day of travel in case someone that was already upgraded cancels their flight. The second list is the one at the airport for the day of travel. They open up additional seats up front a little prior to boarding that were for actual purchase. When no one purchases those seats, they give them out to people on the upgrade waitlist. I don't think fare basis has anything to do with the waitlist or the upgrade list, so someone may want to clarfiy.

If they are doing these manually at 12:01am, that means a few things:

1.) SABRE really is poorly implemented. This should be an automated process that the system does based on G availability.

2.) There may not be THAT many CP's if people can do this by hand each day.

I was always under the impression that the standby list is based on time of check-in and so far it has worked this way for me.

A recent upgrade I had, which was processed "automatically", only upgraded the first leg of a connection. I looked the next morning, saw that, and then saw a bunch of G seats on the leg I didn't get, so I called. They upgraded the second leg immediately, but it begs the question of just how mechanical the thing is. I am not flying US much, so I don't know if that was an isolated instance. Bottom line, if you care, you still have to spend the time to watch what they are doing, and not trust the system.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by RSMC:
They suggested that if I really wanted the upgrade, I should call at 12:01am and request it. This would ensure that if there were a bunch of CP's getting upgraded for the same flight, then I would be the first.
</font>

Except that they sometimes process the upgrade list before 12:01 AM as I have discovered ....

On a similar issue, I recently learned the method most often used for handling reassignments when there is an equip change. I was on a 757, upgrade already cleared, and the flight was changed to an airbus. I learned this at the counter and had a brief panic attack, even though I'm CP. He said they were supposed to attempt to reassign based on paid fares, status, etc. But that in reality (because it's frequently a last minute thing) they start at row 1 and assign the same seats until they run out of seats. He said you should always pick rows 1-3 for just this reason.

Anyone had this experience?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by svpii:
On a similar issue, I recently learned the method most often used for handling reassignments when there is an equip change. I was on a 757, upgrade already cleared, and the flight was changed to an airbus. I learned this at the counter and had a brief panic attack, even though I'm CP. He said they were supposed to attempt to reassign based on paid fares, status, etc. But that in reality (because it's frequently a last minute thing) they start at row 1 and assign the same seats until they run out of seats. He said you should always pick rows 1-3 for just this reason.

Anyone had this experience?</font>

Yes.

The cockroaches gathered pitchforks and stormed the podium...

In the end they did it the right way. But it was ugly.

It was all in the name of "getting us home on time" since the inbound a321 was delayed. They found another plane to fly the leg but, gee, it was in the hanger... It'll be here Real Soon Now. It finally arrives and we all head down the jetway... suddenly there are people heading back up the jetway. Then there's an announcement about people seated in rows 4 through 7 needing to report to the podium... Oops! The replacement plane is an a319...

There was a scene. One very angry CP and a very defensive gate agent who kept changing the story. Which of course just added fuel to the fire... (no out and out yelling though -- just very tense fuming)

I waited patiently. It all worked out as it should -- paying F customers 1st (I doubt there were any...) then us freeloaders by status. Lowly Gold, Silver and Tin shuffled off to the back.

In the end the original plane showed up about the same time we pushed back.

I always book row 2. If the plane changes and I get booked out of row 2 before my flight, I call back and get back into row 2. Never had a plane change (lucky I guess) so far, however.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by TomBascom:
I waited patiently. It all worked out as it should -- paying F customers 1st (I doubt there were any...) then us freeloaders by status. Lowly Gold, Silver and Tin shuffled off to the back.
</font>

Status is great, but I personally would have no problem with them allocating seats in such an event based on fare/price paid. I wouldnt have any problem with making it the tiebreaker for people on the standby list with the same status either.

It would at least reinforce the idea that people who pay more are more loyal ;-)

Of course given this system, I would never be up front after an equipment change.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by hscottm:
Status is great, but I personally would have no problem with them allocating seats in such an event based on fare/price paid. I wouldnt have any problem with making it the tiebreaker for people on the standby list with the same status either.

It would at least reinforce the idea that people who pay more are more loyal ;-)

Of course given this system, I would never be up front after an equipment change.</font>

I agree. Money should talk. They just need to keep in mind that money has talked. That's why nobody is buying their asinine Y fares.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by svpii:
On a similar issue, I recently learned the method most often used for handling reassignments when there is an equip change. I was on a 757, upgrade already cleared, and the flight was changed to an airbus. I learned this at the counter and had a brief panic attack, even though I'm CP. He said they were supposed to attempt to reassign based on paid fares, status, etc. But that in reality (because it's frequently a last minute thing) they start at row 1 and assign the same seats until they run out of seats. He said you should always pick rows 1-3 for just this reason.

Anyone had this experience?</font>

yes, on the 10pm PIT-PHL flight a few months back, the inbound (320 i think or maybe it was the odd 767 that passes through from time to time) was late, so they replaced it with a 319. F was full before the switch, i was confirmed (as CP)in F. of course, when they finally made the switch (at around 11:30!!!) they made the announcement for everyone to go to the podium for a new boarding pass. after we all waited a while, and i could sense F filling up, they made a new announcement for everyone who *was* in F and had not rec'd a new boarding pass to go accross the hall (to a different gate) and check in. that was bad news i knew. in any case, i was CP on a Y(!!) ticket and did not get F, but rather an apology. i didn't feel like creating a fuss on a 45min flight (although if it were a transcon i would have been more insistent) so i took me seat on the aisle around row 12 or so (they didn't even save me something closer in coach). if there is a policy for reassignment, it was not followed here. and they had PLENTY of time to reassign efficiently.