US Airways Dividend Miles - Not allowed upgrade on LHR>BOS due to plane change rule

Flying tomorrow LHR>BOS with a change in PHL. The flight number 729 stays on both segments LHR-PHL and PHL-BOS.

I called everyday this week to use my chairman certs for upgrade with 9+ envoy seats available. I was told until this morning that they had not been released. I was just told (within 24hrs of departure) since there is a change of plane in PHL but not a change of flight number there is no way for me to upgrade prior to arrival at the airport. This, first of all, is frustrating as I was never told of this in the 7 calls I have made this week and more importantly that I am not going to be able to use my certificate upgrades or miles since I will have to go upgrade at the gate.

Has anyone dealt with this before? How can this be possible there are 9 seats available and I cannot upgrade ahead of time due to a computer processing issue?

p.s. I spoke to the supervisor at the chairman's desk and was told they do not handle the computer details.

HUACA! KVS shows award availabilty (not 100% correlation to upgrade inventory but very close):

[KVS Availability Tool 7.0.2/Diamond - SNT: Awards/StarAlliance/JP-ANA-SP1]

LHR London Heathrow UK [EGLL]
PHL Philadelphia Metro / Intl PA US = PHL TTN [KPHL]
SUN 29 Jul 2012 | 1 Seat

Carrier Flight From Depart To Arrive A/C St Availability
--------- ------ ---- -------- ---- -------- --- -- -------------
US 729 LHR 12:15 PHL 15:30 333 0 FS/ CS+ YS-


Tell them you are only interested in the LHR-PHL leg and don't care about inventory on the PHL-BOS leg.

As Mrs. NY-FLA learned, and all UA FF's are now learning, this is a limitation of SHARES, the booking system inherited from HP and, in UA's case from CO. The system simply cannot process upgrades on an itinerary with the same flight number over two different legs. Sometimes it can be done at the airport, provided there's any upgrades left. If upgrades are important, don't buy an itinerary with the same flight number over more than 1 leg.

Seems like I am out of luck on this subject then?

Any use in calling chairman preferred again and asking for supervisor?

Thanks for the posts

Any use in calling chairman preferred again and asking for supervisor?

Thanks for the posts

Can't hurt. Worst case is they say no; best case is you get upgraded.