uva185

I am booked on HP 431 from SAN-LAS-PHL. I was told there are seats available for upgrade on the LAS-PHL segment but no seats available on the SAN-LAS segment. Because I am booked on a thru flight number I was told I cannot be upgraded on the LAS-PHL segment since there are no upgrade seats available from SAN-LAS. Is there anyway around this???

ECKOA6

I had a similar situation in january on my return flight dtw-las-phx all same flight number. The funny thing was that when looking in expert flyer the dtw-las segment showed O4 and the las-phx segment showed O4 but when looking at it as dtw-phx it was O0.
Looking at your flights its a similar situation.

HP 431
SAN 02/15/07 08:20 PM
LAS 02/15/07 09:34 PM
320 Daily
F4 A4 P4 Y7 B7 M7 H7 Q7 N4 V7 W4 L4 S4 T4 G4 K0 U0 E0 R0 O4 X4

HP 431
LAS 02/15/07 10:50 PM
PHL 02/16/07 06:19 AM
320 Daily
F4 A4 P4 Y7 B7 M0 H7 Q7 N4 V0 W4 L4 S0 T0 G0 K0 U0 E0 R0 O4 X4

Notice both segments when separate show O4 and P4
now when looking at it as a direct flight it shows O0 and P0

HP 431
SAN 02/15/07 08:20 PM
PHL 02/16/07 06:19 AM
320 Daily
F4 A4 P0 Y7 B7 M7 H7 Q7 N4 V7 W0 L0 S0 T0 G0 K0 U0 E0 R0 O0 X4

What I did when I had this happen was call a west agent and explained to them that when booked seperate that each segment had upgrades available. The agent I spoke to looked it up and found that I was correct. She put me on hold for a minute came back on the line and told me she had split the segments and upgraded me on both. Not only by splitting the segments did I get my upgrades but I also got separate mileage credit for dtw-las and las-phx netting me more eqms.

BrettS

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the issue is that you need to be assigned the same seat on both segments of the flight. If that's not possible then you can't be upgraded. Most likely, that wasn't possible, so no upgrades were available. Now that it's been split up you'll almost certainly wind up with a different seat on each segment.

Brett

ECKOA6

I Had the same seat on both segments. I think the issue is that there is a glitch in the system there is P4 and O4 on both segments but when looked up as a single direct segment its showing O0 P0.

Captain Flush

I've faced the OP's exact situation more than once. If it's the first leg of a through flight that prevents you from upgrading, and you aren't able to split up the segments or work anything else out in advance, get off the plane after the first leg, head straight for the nearest GA, explain the situation, say "please" and cross your fingers. I've managed to upgrade PIT-SFO and PIT-LAX before after spending DCA-PIT in Y on through flights by doing exactly that. (Of course, this may have something more to do with friendly PIT GAs than anything else . . . .) It's less than ideal, but when it works, it's definitely worth the (relatively) minor hassle.

SS255

A gate agent was once able to "force" the upgrade on both legs when she could not assign me the same seat all the way through. However...the moral of this story is to never book a direct flight if you can help it!

uva185

Okay. I got a free trial account at expert flyer, but I am not getting the same results as you. When I check fare availability is is always telling me there is O4. Is there a special way to search to get an accurate result? (For one search it said F0 P0 A0......O4)

FYI, My flight is on 2/17

BrettS

Yes, originally you would have had the same seat on both segments, because like I said above, the airlines force you to. The problem was that even though there were four free F seats on both segments none of them were the same seat on both segments, so they couldn't upgrade you to F. By breaking it up you'll be able to sit in a different F seat on each segment.

Brett

AZ Travels the World

As of late, I have not been able to count on expertflyer for this data. Flights they show O4 on, the agents on both the west and east side (multiple calls, multiple agents) say are not available for upgrade (these examples are non-stop flights, not direct as the OP's). This didn't used to be the case, but as of the past few weeks, it is.

I, too, have had success with a CP agent somehow splitting a direct flight into two segments so that I could be upgraded on one of the flights that was available for advance upgrade. It can be done, I think it just takes an agent that knows what they're doing and/or is willing to go the extra mile to figure it out.

ECKOA6

No, When they upgraded me I was given the same first class seat assignment on both flights.

uva185,
Expertflyer is having a issue with the O buckets atm. I sent in a bug report to them and they are looking into it.

BrettS

Oh. Well then I have no clue (which isn't so unusual for me)