United MileagePlus (Consolidated) - No Status and Less Status

Flew IAD-BRU Aug 11 and travelled with coworker and his wife. The coworker and wife are on separate PNR's as his is booked through company and he bought hers for cash. Coworker is Prem Exec and wife has no status at all. They both upgrade to business using miles and this 1k is stuck in coach with a GPU applied. The C cabin shows 33 booked of 40 seats 24hrs out.

After that and after checkin it shows nobody on the upgrade list on any list or even standby's. I had to literally call 1K line 8x playing customer service roulette. I finally today get a nice supervisor who at least put me on the list even though its now booked full. I am literally the only name on the upgrade list.

I thought I understood the upgrade process but I guess I don't. The part that annoyed me more was all the CSR's I dealt with except the last 2, kept telling me I don't know we can't help you. We can't add you to the list and the tone of their voice. They kept saying you don't know what you are talking about when asked how a person with no status can be upgraded before a 1k. They also told me all the C seats were full revenue which I knew to be false.

thanks for listening to this rant and maybe someone can explain the mysterious new upgrade priorites :)

thanks for listening to this rant and maybe someone can explain the mysterious new upgrade priorites :)

I'm going to go way out on a limb again and say that perhaps it's because the new UA totally stinks. Change your airlines is the only advice I can give.

They kept saying you don't know what you are talking about when asked how a person with no status can be upgraded before a 1k. They also told me all the C seats were full revenue which I knew to be false.

I was told repeatedly and with conviction that that all of the 777s have been converted to the new, lie flat seats.

The phone agents seem to "know" a lot of strange things these days.

This happened to me on a p.s. flight. With one seat remaining, I worked patiently to get a gate agent to force me back onto the upgrade list. Immediately I was 1/30 and got the last seat in C at boarding. I had never seen so many inexperienced C passengers on that flight. I had a strange sensation that most of my fellow C passengers had never flown on p.s. C before...lots of people asking FAs how to operate seats.

Since leaving, this sounds like the norm. I would switch to another airline.

Flew IAD-BRU Aug 11 and travelled with coworker and his wife. The coworker and wife are on separate PNR's as his is booked through company and he bought hers for cash. Coworker is Prem Exec and wife has no status at all. They both upgrade to business using miles and this 1k is stuck in coach with a GPU applied. The C cabin shows 33 booked of 40 seats 24hrs out.

After that and after checkin it shows nobody on the upgrade list on any list or even standby's. I had to literally call 1K line 8x playing customer service roulette. I finally today get a nice supervisor who at least put me on the list even though its now booked full. I am literally the only name on the upgrade list.

I thought I understood the upgrade process but I guess I don't. The part that annoyed me more was all the CSR's I dealt with except the last 2, kept telling me I don't know we can't help you. We can't add you to the list and the tone of their voice. They kept saying you don't know what you are talking about when asked how a person with no status can be upgraded before a 1k. They also told me all the C seats were full revenue which I knew to be false.

thanks for listening to this rant and maybe someone can explain the mysterious new upgrade priorites :)

I was told repeatedly and with conviction that that all of the 777s have been converted to the new, lie flat seats.

The phone agents seem to "know" a lot of strange things these days.

Could most of these agents have been PMCO agents? PMCO updated its 777's to all lie-flats some time ago. (As a result, they may not be aware of the non-lie-flat PMUA 777's.)

Could most of these agents have been PMCO agents? PMCO updated its 777's to all lie-flats some time ago. (As a result, they may not be aware of the non-lie-flat PMUA 777's.)
That's no excuse.

Flew IAD-BRU Aug 11 and travelled with coworker and his wife. The coworker and wife are on separate PNR's as his is booked through company and he bought hers for cash. Coworker is Prem Exec and wife has no status at all. They both upgrade to business using miles and this 1k is stuck in coach with a GPU applied. The C cabin shows 33 booked of 40 seats 24hrs out.

After that and after checkin it shows nobody on the upgrade list on any list or even standby's. I had to literally call 1K line 8x playing customer service roulette. I finally today get a nice supervisor who at least put me on the list even though its now booked full. I am literally the only name on the upgrade list.

I thought I understood the upgrade process but I guess I don't. The part that annoyed me more was all the CSR's I dealt with except the last 2, kept telling me I don't know we can't help you. We can't add you to the list and the tone of their voice. They kept saying you don't know what you are talking about when asked how a person with no status can be upgraded before a 1k. They also told me all the C seats were full revenue which I knew to be false.

thanks for listening to this rant and maybe someone can explain the mysterious new upgrade priorites :)

Please send details of this discrepancy to UA Insider so she can investigate.

Flew IAD-BRU Aug 11 and travelled with coworker and his wife. The coworker and wife are on separate PNR's as his is booked through company and he bought hers for cash. Coworker is Prem Exec and wife has no status at all. They both upgrade to business using miles and this 1k is stuck in coach with a GPU applied. The C cabin shows 33 booked of 40 seats 24hrs out.

After that and after checkin it shows nobody on the upgrade list on any list or even standby's. I had to literally call 1K line 8x playing customer service roulette. I finally today get a nice supervisor who at least put me on the list even though its now booked full. I am literally the only name on the upgrade list.

I thought I understood the upgrade process but I guess I don't. The part that annoyed me more was all the CSR's I dealt with except the last 2, kept telling me I don't know we can't help you. We can't add you to the list and the tone of their voice. They kept saying you don't know what you are talking about when asked how a person with no status can be upgraded before a 1k. They also told me all the C seats were full revenue which I knew to be false.

thanks for listening to this rant and maybe someone can explain the mysterious new upgrade priorites :)

This happened quite a bit after PSS, with itineraries that were booked in Apollo and came over to SHARES. Seems like it's still happening, although haven't seen as much of it. The reason your co-worker and his wife cleared before you is that for some reason you dropped off the upgrade list. Based on previous reports (and your report), it seems that it's very difficult to get back on the list once it's dropped. Another reminded to always look for R space on GPU flights, and call immediately if it hasn't cleared.

Thats the funny part there wasn't any R space showing open when I was checking. But I think it did open they upgraded a bunch of people and I was left out. That Apollo issue sounds like it might be the ringer for an answer. I was unable to checkin online and they said it was because of my upgrade and I was like what upgrade I am not on the list. Typical UA lately airport says can't help you 1k says I can't then all of a sudden the good 1k person can. I will pm UAInsider.

Flew IAD-BRU Aug 11 and travelled with coworker and his wife. The coworker and wife are on separate PNR's as his is booked through company and he bought hers for cash. Coworker is Prem Exec and wife has no status at all. They both upgrade to business using miles and this 1k is stuck in coach with a GPU applied. The C cabin shows 33 booked of 40 seats 24hrs out.

After that and after checkin it shows nobody on the upgrade list on any list or even standby's. I had to literally call 1K line 8x playing customer service roulette. I finally today get a nice supervisor who at least put me on the list even though its now booked full. I am literally the only name on the upgrade list.

I thought I understood the upgrade process but I guess I don't. The part that annoyed me more was all the CSR's I dealt with except the last 2, kept telling me I don't know we can't help you. We can't add you to the list and the tone of their voice. They kept saying you don't know what you are talking about when asked how a person with no status can be upgraded before a 1k. They also told me all the C seats were full revenue which I knew to be false.

thanks for listening to this rant and maybe someone can explain the mysterious new upgrade priorites :)

I would appreciate if you can do the following:

1. Send a private message to UA Insider with record locators for each of the 3 PNRs.

2. Post a message here telling us you did that.

3. Post a message here telling us what you learned back from UA Insider, if you get a response.

Unless you do that, there's nothing much left for us to do, except complain and gripe about this horrible state of affairs. As we've been doing that since 3/3, it would be nice to try to accomplish something productive instead.

I agree and will let you know what comes back. I have to get the other 2 PNR's for a second msg to UAinsider. I am really not one to complain but this was just shocking to me. It was the first time in all honesty I was this aggravated with UA even after the merger. Like I said above too its really the CSR bs when you talk to them that is horrible. They try to make you feel dumb and they offer no recourse. At a hotel you have a complaint, at least most times for me, they fix it on the spot if they can or they offer a discount or some other thing to make up for it.

I agree and will let you know what comes back. I have to get the other 2 PNR's for a second msg to UAinsider. I am really not one to complain but this was just shocking to me. It was the first time in all honesty I was this aggravated with UA even after the merger. Like I said above too its really the CSR bs when you talk to them that is horrible. They try to make you feel dumb and they offer no recourse. At a hotel you have a complaint, at least most times for me, they fix it on the spot if they can or they offer a discount or some other thing to make up for it.

Thank you for follow up. You are the second person to post this scenario but the first person didn't respond to requests that he forward details to UA Insider, so that whole thread was a useless rant.

This isn't about complaining. It's about finding the truth.

If we don't like the truth, then, we can start complaining.

Generally, UA has become horrific under $mi$ek. You can complain about that. It's not going to change anytime soon.

But, as for the specifics about what happened to your UG, if you've sent the details to UA Insider then perhaps she will research and provide some facts about what happened.

Flew IAD-BRU Aug 11 and travelled with coworker and his wife. The coworker and wife are on separate PNR's as his is booked through company and he bought hers for cash. Coworker is Prem Exec and wife has no status at all. They both upgrade to business using miles and this 1k is stuck in coach with a GPU applied. The C cabin shows 33 booked of 40 seats 24hrs out.

After that and after checkin it shows nobody on the upgrade list on any list or even standby's. I had to literally call 1K line 8x playing customer service roulette. I finally today get a nice supervisor who at least put me on the list even though its now booked full. I am literally the only name on the upgrade list.

I thought I understood the upgrade process but I guess I don't. The part that annoyed me more was all the CSR's I dealt with except the last 2, kept telling me I don't know we can't help you. We can't add you to the list and the tone of their voice. They kept saying you don't know what you are talking about when asked how a person with no status can be upgraded before a 1k. They also told me all the C seats were full revenue which I knew to be false.

thanks for listening to this rant and maybe someone can explain the mysterious new upgrade priorites :)

I agree and will let you know what comes back. I have to get the other 2 PNR's for a second msg to UAinsider. I am really not one to complain but this was just shocking to me. It was the first time in all honesty I was this aggravated with UA even after the merger. Like I said above too its really the CSR bs when you talk to them that is horrible. They try to make you feel dumb and they offer no recourse. At a hotel you have a complaint, at least most times for me, they fix it on the spot if they can or they offer a discount or some other thing to make up for it.

Hi wav3rider, first and foremost, thank you for sharing the specific reservation with me. It’s extremely helpful in expediting research and being able to determine exactly what happened and where the failure point occurred as opposed to any guessing. The short answer here is yes, you indeed should have cleared before your friends (I’ve responded to your PM as well and we can discuss compensation outside the forum as I do want to make this up you). All in all, while it does not make it better, there was no system bug or system failure point here. It appears that what happened was the direct result of manual intervention. Here are some helpful details:


You and your friends were both waitlisted at the right priorities. Being 1K, your priority was higher than theirs, which was Gold. One important note is that your friend’s wife, without status, was using miles from his account, so she was correctly waitlisted at his status as well (no non-status came into play)


When the system clears waitlists, it looks at the priority codes first. This means that, even if you’d waitlisted after your friends (which you did not), your waitlist would have cleared first. It does not take into account whether a GPU or miles are being used since ultimately they both clear into R


So, why didn’t your waitlist clear before theirs? What I can tell is that it is because their waitlists were manually cleared in advance of the system working through the list. What I don’t know is why. I am working to find out and will be back in touch on this piece to share more.


On a slightly separate front, I also wanted to share that, from a technical/system standpoint, your reservation was also correctly set up to place you on the upgrade standby list at check-in. The reason this did not happen was because, from the looks of it, you had trouble checking in (my guess is because it needed to create a new passport profile for you by having you swipe your passport at an airport kiosk). When this happens, our Contact Center agents do not have the same capabilities as our Airport agents do to add you to the list. This a clearly an area we need to handle better and I’m very sorry for any hassle it created.

Shannon

So, why didn’t your waitlist clear before theirs? What I can tell is that it is because their waitlists were manually cleared in advance of the system working through the list. What I don’t know is why. I am working to find out and will be back in touch on this piece to share more.
[/LIST][/INDENT]

Shannon,
As always, thanks for the detailed responses here on FT.

This last point will strike a chord with many experienced flyers and a lot of people here on FT. Please don't close this loophole :)

Many get ExpertFlyer alerts that "R" class has opened up and we can call into the call center and have our waitlisted upgrades cleared. This would be considered a 'manual intervention'. It stinks we have to do this but most flyers don't trust the UA automated system to clear us.

I suspect the OP's friend saw that "R" space was opened and called in to have it cleared. That or a UA angel was looking over them and cleared them when R opened up. But we all know UA doesn't provide angels to Premier Golds :p

-RM

Shannon,

I replied to the PM and just want to say thank you again for the detailed explanation and compensation. Even without the compensation it was nice to have you explain the problem and apologize, thats all I was looking for.

Wav3rider

Shannon,

I replied to the PM and just want to say thank you again for the detailed explanation and compensation. Even without the compensation it was nice to have you explain the problem and apologize, thats all I was looking for.

Wav3rider

Out of curiosity, DID your friends "jump the queue" and call in to clear their upgrades? This is the whole point....

Shannon,
As always, thanks for the detailed responses here on FT.

This last point will strike a chord with many experienced flyers and a lot of people here on FT. Please don't close this loophole :)

Many get ExpertFlyer alerts that "R" class has opened up and we can call into the call center and have our waitlisted upgrades cleared. This would be considered a 'manual intervention'. It stinks we have to do this but most flyers don't trust the UA automated system to clear us.

I suspect the OP's friend saw that "R" space was opened and called in to have it cleared. That or a UA angel was looking over them and cleared them when R opened up. But we all know UA doesn't provide angels to Premier Golds :p

-RM

At the end of the day this is the entire problem. UA is forcing us as pax to micromanage our reservations in order for them to be handled correctly, and by some people having more time/ability/information with which to micromanage, they're jumping in the upgrade queue in ways that they should not. Having a direct admission of the outcome of this by UAInsider in this case leads me to even more disappointment in the system :td::td:

I don't understand the ins and outs of all of this upgrade list handling BS, but last I checked, a part of the services that we are paying UA for when tickets are purchased includes entrusting them to manage reservations, upgrades, etc correctly. One thing I do understand is that I've flown in F exactly twice since the merger, and I bet this explanation from UAInsider has a lot to do with "Y" that has been the case.

I appreciate that the merger has been challenging. However, it's now been nearly 6 months. You can only tolerate so much marriage counseling before you realize that no matter what you are headed down the road to divorce. If UA doesn't want to divorce CO, I guess that leaves me with only one other option.

Yes my friends jumped the queue but not on purpose. They don't even know how to check for R availability. He was just calling to use his miles to put his wife on the upgrade list with him and the agent said hold on and then they were both upgraded at that point.

Unfortunately, I suspect it is only because so many passengers have complained about the automated stystem not working properly that it is even permitted for the agents to manually intervene. If the agents were not able to manually "force" the upgrades then the proper sequence woukd have been followed by the system and the 1K would have been upgraded before the Gold.

One thing I really liked about PMCO was that they had removed most of the opportunities to game the system therefore making it totally unnecessary for me to babysit any reservations or call to force upgrades through. I much preferred that the system applied them in proper sequence and I could spend my personal time doing something more fun than being on hold with an agent.

Unfortunately, I suspect it is only because so many passengers have complained about the automated stystem not working properly that it is even permitted for the agents to manually intervene. If the agents were not able to manually "force" the upgrades then the proper sequence woukd have been followed by the system and the 1K would have been upgraded before the Gold.

One thing I really liked about PMCO was that they had removed most of the opportunities to game the system therefore making it totally unnecessary for me to babysit any reservations or call to force upgrades through. I much preferred that the system applied them in proper sequence and I could spend my personal time doing something more fun than being on hold with an agent.I wouldn't call it "gaming the system" as imho, regardless of calling or not calling, the current "system" simply is not working because for whatever reason, the powers that be decided to take a system that worked under PMCO and also one that worked under PMUA and not use either one (or they chose one and then screwed the pooch by including numerous upgrade buy up "options" out of greed without properly testing it leaving us with what we have now)

Hi wav3rider, first and foremost, thank you for sharing the specific reservation with me. It’s extremely helpful in expediting research and being able to determine exactly what happened and where the failure point occurred as opposed to any guessing. The short answer here is yes, you indeed should have cleared before your friends (I’ve responded to your PM as well and we can discuss compensation outside the forum as I do want to make this up you). All in all, while it does not make it better, there was no system bug or system failure point here. It appears that what happened was the direct result of manual intervention. Here are some helpful details:


You and your friends were both waitlisted at the right priorities. Being 1K, your priority was higher than theirs, which was Gold. One important note is that your friend’s wife, without status, was using miles from his account, so she was correctly waitlisted at his status as well (no non-status came into play)


When the system clears waitlists, it looks at the priority codes first. This means that, even if you’d waitlisted after your friends (which you did not), your waitlist would have cleared first. It does not take into account whether a GPU or miles are being used since ultimately they both clear into R


So, why didn’t your waitlist clear before theirs? What I can tell is that it is because their waitlists were manually cleared in advance of the system working through the list. What I don’t know is why. I am working to find out and will be back in touch on this piece to share more.


On a slightly separate front, I also wanted to share that, from a technical/system standpoint, your reservation was also correctly set up to place you on the upgrade standby list at check-in. The reason this did not happen was because, from the looks of it, you had trouble checking in (my guess is because it needed to create a new passport profile for you by having you swipe your passport at an airport kiosk). When this happens, our Contact Center agents do not have the same capabilities as our Airport agents do to add you to the list. This a clearly an area we need to handle better and I’m very sorry for any hassle it created.

Shannon

Shannon, Thank you for sharing this research.

What is a "priority code" and how are they set?

As for the last point, there have been many messages posted about SNAFUs happening to UG when the PAX reports getting the message stating that the passport must be shown at check-in. This seems to correspond with what you described above.

Yes my friends jumped the queue but not on purpose. They don't even know how to check for R availability. He was just calling to use his miles to put his wife on the upgrade list with him and the agent said hold on and then they were both upgraded at that point.

So, it sounds like the issue here is that there was R space, you didn't clear into it, and the agent cleared them into it when they called to apply their miles.

The root issue, then, is that you didn't clear when R opened. If I'm reading this right.

So, it sounds like the issue here is that there was R space, you didn't clear into it, and the agent cleared them into it when they called to apply their miles.

The root issue, then, is that you didn't clear when R opened. If I'm reading this right.

Right - it's an IT issue. The software that opens up the R inventory doesn't ALSO force the upgrade list to be processed.

NW used to have this issue but eventually updated their software so that as soon as any upgrade inventory opened up, they also processed the upgrade list, so there wasn't any window for "manual intervention".

Right - it's an IT issue. The software that opens up the R inventory doesn't ALSO force the upgrade list to be processed.

NW used to have this issue but eventually updated their software so that as soon as any upgrade inventory opened up, they also processed the upgrade list, so there wasn't any window for "manual intervention".such as simple solution, most surprizing is not obvious to all or has been done. DL was not the only to do this, PMUA did it also.
The out of sycn ticket issue blocking processing when it does occur is another dah moment.

i'm curious to understand when the other 2 pax cleared if
a) R was open, but waitlist just didn't process at all, so when the agent applied, they cleared or
b) R was not open, but the agent force booked or "opened up" R to clear the mileage upgrade

Hi wav3rider,

On a slightly separate front, I also wanted to share that, from a technical/system standpoint, your reservation was also correctly set up to place you on the upgrade standby list at check-in. The reason this did not happen was because, from the looks of it, you had trouble checking in (my guess is because it needed to create a new passport profile for you by having you swipe your passport at an airport kiosk). When this happens, our Contact Center agents do not have the same capabilities as our Airport agents do to add you to the list. This a clearly an area we need to handle better and I’m very sorry for any hassle it created.

Shannon

Sounds like a big issue. Had same problem traveling with a new passport. Name never appeared on the UG list and had to have it manually done.

i'm curious to understand when the other 2 pax cleared if
a) R was open, but waitlist just didn't process at all, so when the agent applied, they cleared or
b) R was not open, but the agent force booked or "opened up" R to clear the mileage upgrade

It's got to be (a)

Agents don't open R space just for fun. It takes an extraordinary amount of effort and there has to be a strong justification. Even people who deserve to have R space opened due to IRROPS can't get that done.

I've noticed, in most phone interactions I've ever had since 3/3, particularly with CO agents, that they're very casual about "checking to see if they can process an upgrade" as part of the call. It's a routine behavior.

And, if everyone on the waitlist has cleared when that space has opened, therefore the space is open and nobody is on the waitlist, there is nothing wrong with this behavior.

But, it's very wrong when others are waiting, and someone can jump ahead just by calling when R opens while they're waiting.

Yes my friends jumped the queue but not on purpose. They don't even know how to check for R availability. He was just calling to use his miles to put his wife on the upgrade list with him and the agent said hold on and then they were both upgraded at that point.

Wav3rider, I also want to thank you for posting here AND for following up with Shannon. You are the first person I've seen who has done both of those things and therefore you are the first post I've seen where we've been able to move beyond "complaining" and into "understanding" so you have done a service to all of us who want to know what's going on with upgrades and sort out the nonsense from the facts.

such as simple solution, most surprizing is not obvious to all or has been done. DL was not the only to do this, PMUA did it also.

It's not necessarily a trivial change. Software like this gets built over time, and in pieces. So the software that manages the inventory is on one computer, and the software that processes the upgrades is on another computer, and getting those two pieces to talk to each other is non-trivial. The software that processes the upgrade was probably never designed to even receive messages from other software, and adding that ability isn't a quick change.

And that's assuming you can even tell the upgrade queue software to just process one flight. More likely that software just periodically goes through and upgrades everything.

So it's not really a trivial fix - to fix it, you have to basically throw out the existing "periodically process upgrade lists" software and entirely replace it with new software that processes the upgrade list on a flight-by-flight basis, then find everywhere in the UA system where upgrade inventory might get added and then modify the software there to notify the new upgrade software to process upgrades for that flight.


Somebody made a poor design decision in the initial upgrade queue processing implementation and fixing it basically means starting over.

Sounds like a big issue. Had same problem traveling with a new passport. Name never appeared on the UG list and had to have it manually done.

It's not just new passports. AFAIK, this happens to ALL travelers headed to countries that require visas for entry. Has any U.S. citizen avoided the passport check ex U.S. to Brazil or China?

Right - it's an IT issue. The software that opens up the R inventory doesn't ALSO force the upgrade list to be processed.

NW used to have this issue but eventually updated their software so that as soon as any upgrade inventory opened up, they also processed the upgrade list, so there wasn't any window for "manual intervention".

+1 for almost assuredly the accurate diagnosis for the OP's upgrade condition. ^

UA IT staff has really not been up to task lately. "Map Your Dreams" promo still has issues, etc.

+1 for almost assuredly the accurate diagnosis for the OP's upgrade condition. ^

UA IT staff has really not been up to task lately. "Map Your Dreams" promo still has issues, etc.

So, if you're flying to a country that requires a visa, then you have a chance to UG if R space opens before T-24, then, at T-24, you can't check-in, therefore you can't get added to the second waitlist? In this case, check-in time for waitlist is time of check-in physically at airport?

If this is correct, it would seem that all PAX on the aircraft should be in the same situation, yes?

Well, I hate to say it , but I have become pretty adept at working the system with regards to waitlisted upgrades not clearing automatically. It's sad to have to do it, but its become an every man for himself environment because UA' system is not processing correctly, and worse yet there has been little admission or explanation as to why this is happening and why it can't be fixed quickly. As an IT consulant, I can think up a number of temporary quick fixes, both functional and procedural (see later below).

From what I have observed, clearly there is a disconnect between the R inventory and the upgrade sweep. That is understandable since, from what I understand, there is an Inventory Management system and a Reservation system. IM is the one that decides when and what to open R up. The reservation system has its own sweep schedule which is periodic. I am not sure if RPU and CPUs are swept at the same time and there is also still the mystery on if there is any relationship between R and CPUs.

Now, things get even more absurd at the 24 hr mark. RPU/GPUs on waitlist get cancelled out and not redeposited ( requires a call to get this done and UA is NOT proactive in notifying customers they need to do this which is distasteful customer practice in my opinion). IM has some sweep that runs at about T-23:45 that opens up R. If you do EF quick-check to force a check on R around this time, you can see it happen. That's when you call in to apply the upgrade and clear it.

Also, absurd is the fact that UA did send a memo to its call centers a few weeks ago telling them "not to manually apply or clear upgrades on the _same day_ as a flight", callers are instructed to do it at the airport. I have been blocked several times by this policy. When I attempted to follow the instructions I was given and apply an RPU on the same day at the airport, at the IAH Terminal E Club, 3 agents and one supervisor, and the help desk were unable to determine how to this (despite the awards on the backshelf over best club year over year). R was open, but they could not apply the upgrade saying only the call centers know how to do it. Well, by policy they are not allowed to anymore. We watched R close up in front of them, and they all apologized profusely. As a result, me and my 1K wife were split between coach and FC.

The saving grace in all this is that the policy stated _same day_, when if it had been worded "within 24 hours...", these shenanigans would end. You would not be able to catch that T-23:45 R inventory sweep. I am thinking that was the intent of the policy but it was improperly worded.

Not that I want them to close this loophole as it has been very helpful in getting cleared but has cost me plenty of RPUs and a LOT of called to UA, one for each to apply/clear, and another call to redeposit the cancelled RPU waitlist.

For those that might be digusted with me jumping the list...in every case I happened to be #1 on the CPU upgrade list when I called and used an RPU to guarantee my upgrade so I don't think I stole from anyone, but I could have if I was at any position on the list, and thats what is messed up with the system right now.

UA, can you come clean about why things are messed up right now and when they will get fixed?
- Why can't RPUs/GPUs, carry through the 24 hour mark (I believe we have seen an explanation on this before, an dit is a complex systematic problem)
- Why can't you allow people to call in and apply RPUs/GPUs within 24 hours of the flight?
- Why can't you run the IM sweep at T-24:30 instead and the Upgrade sweep at T-24:45 or so, so that you can clear upgrades that IM is willing to give away within the hour anyway? [i.e. clear that waitlisted RPU instead of dropping it 15 minutes before R opens up!]
- Why can't you auto re-desposit RPUs/GPUs? [Apparently it goes in some manual queue that someone has to work and process eventually. Similar to, or equivalent to the refund queue/black hole....]
- Why can't you peform upgrade sweeps more often so it can catch IM opening up R more quickly and give less chance for people "jumping the line" and reducing calls to the call center?

Why does everyone I speak to who were former UA or CO customers, hate their experience after the merger and what happened to the airline they once liked? The letter in this month's Hemispheres was surprising and welcome, and very well timed for irony to this past week's meltdown. Its nice to hear the CEO admit UA has problems but for once why don't they do the right thing and explain SPECIFICALLY WHAT they are doing about it and WHEN?

I hear you on this. I thought Shannon UA Insider and I were making progress in PM's but for almost 3weeks now she hasn't replied but yet today just put up the new message that they were removing the fare codes. That shows me she has been online but not answering PM's.