<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Jana:
You've mentioned "free upgrades" a couple of times and I have to say that I am a status member and have never gotten a free upgrade, in the past seven years. That is to say, I've had to 'pay' for all of my upgrades with certificates or miles.</font>
I'm often told that psgrs on "free tickets" aren't allowed the same amenities as those on paid tickets during an IRR OPS situation (mech. delay or cxl).
How "free" is an award ticket?
Unfortunately, I found this out to be true....the hard way.
When I worked for UA from 1995-2000, we used to treat XF tickets on a higher priority than NF tickets.....well those days are long gone.
Currently, NF tickets are a HIGHER priority than the "free" XF tickets.
For example, I booked two XF tickets for me and my Mom back in Sep 2002 to go from SFO to ANC this July 4th weekend. I confirmed and got it E-Ticketed.
However, UA downsized the aircraft from a B757 to an A320. Guess who ended up without seats? We didn't have seats anymore and were flat out denied any other options other than taking a different flight on a different day or standing by for FC on the day of departure.
They said that the "paid" upgraded tickets are first and our "free" tickets are bottom priority.
What the ****! The 80,000 miles that I flew with UA, even when they were on the verge of bankruptcy are not "free" miles. The amount of money that my company spent, in addition to my personal travel, were treated with total disregard by UA....I was very disappointed by the way they handled this.
Oh well, we ended up getting two FC tickets on AS through Seattle and just got a refund for our UA flights....
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SFnFlaGuy