US Airways Dividend Miles - People with "long" first names cannot have auto upgrades processed

I spoke with US Airways customer service this morning about how I didn't get an e-mail for my flight tomorrow to the west coast.

The rep told me that because I have an 11-character first name, the new system is unable to process an automatic upgrade for me and I should call to have the upgrade manually processed 4 days out.

This is absolutely ridiculous if true... Has anyone else out there gotten a similar response with a long name?

My first name has 11 letters and I have never had the problem you describe.

I have several preferred colleagues with both 11 character and longer first names and they don't have an issue with upgrades.

Your DM # was entered properly and the name in your profile exactly matched the reservation, right?

This is certainly one of the odder reasons I've seen given for a missed upgrade, but I work in IT, so little would surprise me.

Yes, name matches, and the flight appears in my DM profile page. I've never had a missed upgrade e-mail before, either. I wrote an email to customer service to confirm so we'll see what they say.

OK this just got weirder. So I was still in coach when I went to check in at T-24h, and on the "seat selection page" it is trying to upsell choice seats when I noticed the "first class upgrades available" button. So I click on the first class seat map, and it let's me "purchase" a first class seat for $0.

I now have a boarding pass in F which is great, but I did lose some confidence in the sanctity of the upgrade machine. Either way DCA-PHX in F is better than Y, so I guess I'll call it a win?

While I'm glad it worked out in this case, I'd still push them on it. No telling when this will crop up again.

While I'm glad it worked out in this case, I'd still push them on it. No telling when this will crop up again.

The response from US DM is that this is only an issue with IT when there is a multi-city reservation with more than 4 segments AND a long name (First & Middle). In this particular reservation I do have 3 destinations with 5 total segments so it would fit that particular case.

I rarely book multi-city reservations except open jaws so that would explain why I haven't seen it before. US says they have known about this issue for some time.

Bottom line is if you have a "long" first+middle and a multi-city reservation, don't hesitate to call customer service if you don't get an upgrade email at your window.

It is apparently supposed to be resolved by the new upgrade emails system but wasn't, and now they expect that it "should be resolved by the beginning of next month" so hopefully it won't be an issue for long.

Kudos to customer service for the transparency, even if the IT side leaves something to be desired.

This has happened a few times to me too, for no reason that they could figure out. I have a short first name and no middle name and the times this happened were for simple roundtrip itineraries of one segment each way.

Weird, as I also have a long first name. I'll be doing a multi-city trip next weekend and will see how it turns out.

This has happened to me numerous times this year. Just as the OP described the IT glitch is with Multi-City itineraries - not so much the long first name ...FYI ...My first name has 7 characters although I did have an agent tell me my first name was too long :rolleyes:

What really stinks about this is that I have missed about 15 upgrades this year due to this. When I call to have them manually upgrade it is a fight "We are not supposed to do that anymore"......."everything is fine with your reservation - you just need to let the process work"

I tried to explain to them that for some weird IT reason when you book a multi city the process IGNORES the PNR as if its not there:mad:

US IT needs to fix this!!! I'm surprised this thread isn't longer.... there has to be more US flyertalker's that book multi-city

I have a 10 letter first name, and my BP usually shows up with my first name plus first 2 letters of my middle name, so a total of 12. Never had issues upgrading other than them just not being available.

This has happened to me numerous times this year. Just as the OP described the IT glitch is with Multi-City itineraries - not so much the long first name ...FYI ...My first name has 7 characters although I did have an agent tell me my first name was too long :rolleyes:

What really stinks about this is that I have missed about 15 upgrades this year due to this. When I call to have them manually upgrade it is a fight "We are not supposed to do that anymore"......."everything is fine with your reservation - you just need to let the process work"

I tried to explain to them that for some weird IT reason when you book a multi city the process IGNORES the PNR as if its not there:mad:

US IT needs to fix this!!! I'm surprised this thread isn't longer.... there has to be more US flyertalker's that book multi-city

This, among other reasons, is why I only book 1-way reservations.