Originally Posted by sfonorth

I was checking in for a flight from SFO to PEK. The upgrade into C had cleared at booking with miles. As I didn't have SWU's available at the time of booking, I was told I could always use my SWU at checking in. So when I tried to do this at SFO, I was told this could no longer be done and I had to pay the copayment of $550.

Also, the agent berated me for not having prepaid the copay 24hrs before. It took almost 45min for them to process the copay at the airport.

So are these new policies or just a luck of the draw of the agent at the airport?

Then if these are new policies, can we now switch out upgrades that have cleared with miles to SWU ahead of time w/o risking losing the upgrade.

And has anyone been successful in getting a refund of the copayment in exchange for redeeming a SWU afterwards?