bucketlist

My SO and I were both 4/4 upgrades on award tickets for MSY-iah-ABQ and the return. Some went smoothly, some required some discussion.

It was over the 4 July weekend, probably little business travel, lots of GM's w/ little status.

UACOflyer

I used miles from my OnePass account to buy a ticket for a friend who's traveling with me on an upcoming trip. I paid for my ticket. We both have Presidential Plus credit cards, so both primary card holders, but I used my miles for his ticket since I'm Platinum just in case we needed to change the itinerary or re-deposit the miles. My friend is Gold on CO.

In this case, will he be eligible for a complimentary upgrade with his Gold status? If not, can I list him as my travel companion at the airport for the upgrade?

I'm not 100% sure how this works now. Thanks

goldelite8

Due to a glitch in the system, he will be eligible for a complimentary upgrade at YOUR upgrade window. Therefore, the system will recognize him as a Platinum. You should note that people have reported this not working if the individual is booked into the XN fare class. If you are in the X fare class, you're fine.

UACOflyer

Thanks for the response. I just checked and he's booked as XN economy. What are the options with this booking class for him? Thanks

dergon darkhelm

You need to get the ticket fare class changed to X from XN i think



http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/conti...lfillment.html


See pages 22-24 ish in thread above.

mnmme

Bucket,

Both tickets came out of one OP account?

UACOflyer

Yes, both tickets came from one One Pass account.

bucketlist

Yes.

Actually, there's fine print which could have been used to keep us off the upgrade list. This "benefit" is only for the primary card holder (my SO) and arguably only when miles come from the primary card holder's bucket of miles.

The award miles all came from my account (to avoid the close in award booking fee). We were traveling together, we both had the card, and I recited the new procedure from memory "Effective April 1st, holders of Continental..." no one dug deeply enuf to find this quirk.

Even tho we got the upgrades, and had gotten upgrades for similar award travel to Quebec City, decided the benefits weren't worth the grief.

Prospectively, will wait to pursue award upgrades until after the CO folks know it exists (my psychic friend tells me shortly after the 12th of Never...)

We've a trip MSY-iah-LIM coming up and the cash v. miles cost made award tickets attractive, but we opted for business saver awards, rather than rely on upgrades for award tickets.

Maybe after the new "united" card rolls out and agents become familiar w/ it, it will be interesting to book saver coach awards and rely on the upgrade process. It's been 9 months since the April 1st procedure became effective for the Continental MC's and most GA's still don't know about it, so best to wait until FT'ers report the upgrade procedure works for the new card.

UACOflyer

Bucketlist,

Thanks for the background. Do you know if the free ticket was booked in XN or X class? Did the upgrade come thru automatically or did you have to list your SO at the airport? I spoke with the Platinum desk last night and that agent thought the auto upgrade for the free ticket would actually be more likely with an XN fare as the "N" indicates an OP member while the X fare would be a non-OP member. The agent said the X fare is available, but didn't want to make the switch until I asked a few more questions. Thanks

eleeut

.... how fitting is it that XN fare have the upgrade on the award booking wackiness?

mnmme

Has to be X - have had 2 tix's where one way was X - return was XN.

Both X upgraded - neither XN upgraded and one flight with XN went out with empty F seats.

Red_Rob

Hopefully UA Insider will weigh in on this issue soon. Clearly XN is broken in this case. I send UA Insider a PM with my details as well. I didn't really expect anything over the holidays, but it would certainly be nice to hear something in the near future.

kyte

XN has been broken since the offer was available. Many pages back I posted re: calling OPSC multiple times. All CSRs claimed ignorance - repeating that it makes no sense for X to be on the EUA list and not XN (great, thanks for stating the obvious). One supervisor actually told me there was an internal OPSC memo documenting the "rumors" on the net about broken XN and the memo stated that the rumor was incorrect and to apparently disregard it.

In any case, doesn't seem to be a high priority for UACO/Chase to figure this one out (shocker).

UACOflyer

I just asked CO Platinum desk to make the change to X class and they did. We'll see how it goes, but fingers crossed! Thanks for the advice.

bucketlist

A cc of the email from CO is below. I think this was a mixed metal opn (the ABQ legs were probably on UA metal). Have no idea what "G" is for an award ticket (On US & TK, it's a cheap fare, but this was an award ticket which didn't earn miles). Sorry for awful formatting, but I'm not good at this.

I think some upgrades cleared in advance, some at last minute, kind of hazy on that.

OnePass eTicket Itinerary and Receipt for Confirmation

FLIGHT INFORMATION
Day, Date Flight Class Departure City and Time Arrival City and Time Aircraft Meal
Wed, 29JUN11 CO422 X NEW ORLEANS
(MSY) 9:27AM HOUSTON BUSH INTL
(IAH) 10:34AM 737-900
Wed, 29JUN11 UA46921 G HOUSTON BUSH INTL
(IAH) 2:35PM ALBUQUERQUE NM
(ABQ) 3:37PM CRJ-700
Wed, 06JUL11 UA47272 G ALBUQUERQUE NM
(ABQ) 8:55AM HOUSTON BUSH INTL
(IAH) 11:55AM ERJ 170
Wed, 06JUL11 CO1482 X HOUSTON BUSH INTL
(IAH) 1:05PM NEW ORLEANS
(MSY) 2:18PM 737-800