Originally Posted by
pinniped
Noob question, but I couldn't find a FAQ or overview post:
I'm flying my first flight as a US elite (Gold Preferred) in about 10 years on Saturday at 7:15AM (MCI-CLT).
Shortly after 7:15AM, I was expecting an email telling me whether or not I'd been upgraded. The flight has "First Medium" award seats available, so I was expecting the email to say that an upgrade isn't available.
At 1:10PM EST, I board CLT-PHL - a flight that has "First Low" award seats available. So I'm crossing my fingers here that in 36 minutes I will be upgraded.
(If there's an easy/free way to directly look at 'O' inventory on US, I'm not award of it. I've just seen people use "First Low" award availability as somewhat of a proxy for it, if it's not the exact same bucket.
My US account has the correct email and I receive emails from them all the time.
Is my timing right? Should I be calling them directly? Not looking for a rule to get overridden but I'm concerned that I haven't received an email already - even if it's just to say "Sorry, no upgrade inventory is available."
You should receive an initial, single, email with the status of all flights for your first travel day. It should say something like,
"MCI-CLT: An upgrade is not available
CLT-PHL: Your upgrade is confirmed"
I pretty much get these without fail, unless there's a schedule change I haven't accepted, or something else wrong with my reservation. To see that, you can go to your reservation on the website and view it. Actually, if you've been upgraded you should be able to see your seat changed, and you may be able to select another seat (such as if you're in row 1 and you'd rather be in row 2 and it is available).
I don't see anything wrong with an occasional call, especially if you've not heard anything and your reservation seems intact (actually I'd encourage you to call...as there could be something wrong that you can't see). It is those who get the, "upgrade not available," message who consistently call multiple times a day, then post here saying how an agent manually upgraded them, that get me a bit frustrated.
The computer runs sweeps a couple times a day (I think around every 6 hours?). So even if you get an, "upgrade not available," message, you could get another later that same day with, "your upgrade is confirmed."
I usually have the initial message waiting when I get up in the morning, regardless of the time of the flight (even if it doesn't leave until 11pm).