Hello UA-NYC,

I have a similar experience and I learned my lesson the hard way during my SFO-NRT trip on 4/10.

A week before 4/10, I called United 1K Desk and applied a GPU on this last minute trip. I was told that I was waitlisted, and I could see the waitlist instructions in red text on my United.com Reservations page.

Knowing that the waitlist expires 24-hours before take-off, on the day of travel, I exercised caution and asked both the agent at the check-in counter, and again an hour before take-off with the United Club agent about the upgrade clearing, I was told that I was #1 on the upgrade standby list, yet none of them could clear me just yet.

I thought it was the CO way of clearing upgrades on the new UA that they wanted to sell a few more upgrades for cash until the last minute...

I checked the United iPhone mobile app (see picture) and saw BusinessFirst had a capacity of 49, 36 pax have checked in out of the 37 bookings. I thought with the "latest, real-time app," 49-37 = 12 available, unsold seats.

This is when I decided to take my time making a brief visit to the Singapore Airlines lounge after having some cheese & crackers @ United Club... (yah, cheese & crackers... at least the coffee machine was working this time!)

I arrived at the boarding gate about 30 minutes before departure and was told that there was no BusinessFirst seat available.

I was surprised. I handed over my boarding pass, and asked the gate agent to double check (very nicely and politely). The agent was irritated by my action and typed away, and responded that I was not even on the upgrade list!

WHAT!? What just happened to me? This list does not have my name anywhere!



How come the real time mobile app does not have me on the upgrade list? What list was I on that both agents look at just hours before departure?

Thank you all for your posts. I now understand that I need to check R/RN space and call to ask for a manual clear into R space when it opens up. I will also watch my United.com Reservations page like a hawk...

What else can I do to avoid this in the future?

I was left in shock for a good few hours from SFO-NRT as you can imagine. I didn't think that United magically found 12 paying passengers in BusinessFirst within 2 hours of departure.

Is it really a gamble once we enter the 24-hour window without a confirmed upgrade now? In my case I didn't even have a chance to pull another GPU out for a seat...!

What could I have done differently?

Thanks,
Andrew