Originally Posted by BangkokTraveler

Flying in a group of 10 people this weekend. Only 2 of us have 1K status, the rest are no status, and we wanted to maximize the benefit for the group. So we did this:

record locator #1: 8 people ... a 1K and 7 people with no-status
record locator #2: 2 people ... a 1K and 1 person with no status

The idea is that everyone would get luggage and econ plus seating. And 2 people (record locator #2) might have a chance for an upgrade. No one will check-in online, it will be at the airport. We did book these as RTs rather than OWs (I should have read this thread earlier)

- I was told that the 1K on record locator #1 will not be on an upgrade list because there are 7 people with no status on the same record. Is this correct? Or do I have to do anything to keep this record from being split (which would be very bad as 7 people would lose benefits)?

- We are about 68 hours before the flight and the people on record locator #2 are not upgraded yet. A reliable source with access to loads told me that economy is oversold by 3 and first has 4 seats (out of 16) available. We are thinking that once we are about 6 hours before the flight, the upgrade will not come through via reservations, so we might as well call and tell UA "no upgrade" on this reservation, just to be safe and keep it from auto-splitting. Then, at least we would have a fighting chance for upgrades in the 100-hour window on the return. Does this make sense?

- Finally, will all 8 of the non-status people on these reservations get access to Priority check-in and priority security (even if the 1K is not present at that moment)?

Thanks.