Originally Posted by
jra3
Just another anecdotal report--flying PS tomorrow, noticed just after getting the standard "your upgrade didn't clear" email, that I was now #3 with 3 R seats available. Noticed the same thing last week and was cleared immediately when called, so was hoping for the same experience.
Today was a different story. The first agent told me that the upgrade list was under airport control and she couldn't clear me, so I politely said thank you and planned to call back in a bit. Then, I noticed that the available R space dropped to 2, so not sure who snagged the upgrade, but not #1 or #2 on the list above me, as I was still at #3. Called again, to ask about redeposit and re-attempting the upgrade in hopes of clearing my GPU in the available upgrade space. The agent said she would call a supervisor because she couldn't complete the request. I hung out on hold for 20+ minutes and when the agent returned she seemed low on patience. I was told that I missed a "heated argument" and that the supervisor cleared me as an exception, and that I shouldn't have been cleared since I was #3. Now, I certainly would support fairness in upgrade distribution, but there's nothing that would guarantee that #1 and #2 get the upgrade, with the current T-24 R space free-for-all, so I'm not going to feel all that guilty about taking something that easily someone below me on the list could have snagged as well.
That said, my apologies to #1 and #2--hope you clear tomorrow!
I was number one on the upgrade list on the 8:29 PM p.s. flight from JFK - LAX tonight and I didn't clear. This afternoon I noticed that there was an R1 available. I called the "1K" line and was put on hold because a memo had just been circulated to tell the agents not to clear people off the list. She checked with her supervisor to confirm and wished me luck. I proceeded to tweet united and they told me that "Upgrades within 24 hours of departure must be done at the airport." Basically, the upgrade list doesn't matter until they've had the chance to offer buy-ups to every single passenger. Sadly, I didn't get the offer so I don't know the price.