One theory (that one of my co-workers had) is that when the flight was a 2-cabin 757-200, I was waitlisted for NF as expected. When the plane was swapped to a 3-cabin 767-300, my upgrade request should have been changed to an NC upgrade request, but it was left as an NF request. Some part of the process saw that I had a waitlisted upgrade from "U" to NF on a 3-cabin aircraft, which I clearly understantd is a no-go and as a result the request was effectively dropped. The other part of the theory is that when I called MP CS to verify that the upgrade was still waitlisted, they were looking at the "old" information but had no way of knowing that there info was out-of-date.

Another traveller in our party (who happens to be 1K and a former GS member) was also denied the upgrade based on this same "U" fare not-eligible claim, but decided to not accept the RCC staff's story and talked with the gate-agent who issued him his "C" BP. It turns out that the RCC staff and the gate-agent were both issuing upgrades without comparing notes and as a result that seat was issued to 2 different passangers. When the other "C" BP holder saw the conflict they called the flight attendent over, the flight attendent called the gate-agent to resolve. The gate-agent changed the other passanger's seat to another C seat and had my 1K friend keep his seat, and all was well, until yet another passanger showed up with a BP for the seat of the moved passenger. At this point the individual that was moved by the gate-agent got off the plane, went back in the RCC (right next to C19 in Boston) and pulled the RCC agent (not the gate agent) onto the plane to resolve the difference. The RCC agent recongnized the 1K passenger (the one traveling with me) as the one that she told inside the RCC had a non-upgradeable fare, she asked him where he got the C BP, and he told her from the gate-agent. And at that point the RCC agent said "no" and instructed the flight-attendent that this seat belongs to the moved passanger. Evidently the gate-agent and the RCC agent were both insisting that each other was correct, and in the end the RCC agent trumped the gate-agent on the call of which 1K passenger to let have the seat. And then she decided on the spot to downgrade my 1K friend at that moment back down to E+.

I hope that I'm explaining this well, as it was quite a sight to see....


This entire story makes me confident that my non-status upgrade would not have cleared, but I find the whole issue of the RCC and the gate-agent both clearing upgrades without being in sync is just a mess....