alleony

I recently made a MR, IAH-EWR-HKG-SGN, SGN-HKG-EWR-IAH.
I purchased W Class and applied for upgrade.
The outbound was confirmed but the inbound got screwed.

Before I boarded SGN-HKG, United App showed that it had at least 4 or 5 Biz Seats open, and I saw those remained unoccupied when it was airborne.

United App showed the biz at HKG-EWR was full. I can't confirm it as I couldn't see all of the business cabin from the coach. I didn't get upgrade for EWR-IAH either.

I complaint it to United, and asked for the the fare difference was about $338 one way I think. The representative said she didn't know about the fare, if I insist a refund, she can make the request to the accounting dept, but it may take about a few weeks. But she could offer either $500 e-cert, or 30K miles. I decided to take 30K miles as the compensate.

Questions:
1) SGN-HKG, and HKG-EWR used the same flight number, UA116. Is it why I didn't get upgrade even for SGN-HKG is empty while HKG-EWR is full?

2) which compensation is better, Cash $328 or E-Cert $500 or 30K miles?
Thanks!

aacharya

Direct flights are an issue with upgrades, and why FT mantra is to either book as a multi-leg, or to split the segments.

I would take 30K miles (as a 1K, to me, those are worth at least $600) or the e-cert. But only if I didn't have to use all of the e-cert at once.

Often1

It's moot. OP took the miles. You can argue this different ways depending on your personal needs. Each has its own reasons.

dank0014

I think you should be happy with the miles. There are many reasons those seats could have been emptied (crew seats, broken chair, etc). I've had times when seats flew empty in first and didn't clear and wrote in and received an apology and they would forward to the leadership for review and training - end of story. Looks like you received a good agent that has tried to make it right.

FlytheTail

Sounds like you got an extremely generous agent to give you such an offer. When purchasing a higher (W+) fare class, it's at the risk of the buyer and there are no guarantees you will get the upgrade. Consider it a holiday gift and don't expect it to happen again.

mgcsinc

What an unbelievably odd attempt to cut short the very discussion that the OP invited us to have.

Suggest re-reading the OP. UA screwed up here.

Kacee

But 30,000 miles for a missed upgrade SGN-HKG is extremely generous. That's twice what they currently give a 1K for a forced overnight. SGN-HKG is a 2:45 flight on a 738.

mherdeg

Yeah, I also read that as "wow".

Often1

What's odd is accepting the miles and then asking what to do.

StingWest

yes, I agree - very generous of them IMHO

Kacee

Take the miles!

Baze

Was the return booked as SGN-EWR with a stop in HKG? If so then the whole SGN-EWR would have to be available to upgrade and it won't do it on individual segments, which is what sounds like happened. As someone above noted, you need to make sure you book each leg separately to be able to upgrade one leg if the other is not available. If this is the case then technically you were not due any compensation at all and got lucky to get 30K miles.

But if you did book them as separate legs then UA screwed up and you should have been offered something, which you were and you accepted.

Edit to add, you would not get the difference in fare back as that is the chance you take with the upgrade lottery.

WineCountryUA

While direct flights do need both segments to have available prior to travel, day of travel you just need segment availability to clear an individual segment. So if there was space on either segment, the upgrade should have cleared.

Baze

Thanks for the clarification

alleony

Yes, I did accept the mileage over the phone with some hesitation. Then the rep said I could still call back to change to other options later. So I just came up to ask for suggestions from your guys.