Originally Posted by
channa
This is how it works. Your waitlist expires at 24 hours, and there's nothing you can do (officially) to snag that seat with that upgrade until you're at the gate and you clear the airport waitlist.
There are reports of some agents doing it, but officially, that's not supported.
The only thing that is supported is requesting a new upgrade inside 24 hours -- so if you're willing to lose another instrument, you can confirm the space.
You can always deal with CS after the fact to try to recover the extra instrument.
O.K. this is what a 1K res agent (SLC) told me a few days ago ---
@ T-24 the
waitlist expires and a passenger is not on the
STANDBY LIST until he/she checks in. She made a point of stating over & over that inside T-24 hours it was a
STANDBY LIST and that the
waitlist is NO MORE!
Actually it's really doesn't matter to me what it's called and to take it one step further unless the OP can talk a res agent to upgrading him when he sees an "R" or "RN" then he would need to use another RPU and then ask for the first one back later on since the chances of it being automatically returned is nil. The problem lies in the fact that if the OP was upgraded, on one segment, using the same RPU as he wants to apply inside T-24 on the other segment, and a second one is pulled for the second segment, good luck getting either of them returned.
The fly in the ointment with this whole thing is quite obvious. A guy is on a
waitlist for nearly a year with an RPU applied and at T-24 the RPU goes into Limbo. A few hours later an "R" or "RN" becomes available and bingo someone else that is constantly monitoring calls and grabs the upgrade that the first guy has applied for several months previously and didn't get because he needs to check in and beat it on out to the gate and see what happens.
Pretty screwed up, huh?