Originally Posted by
spin88
I think this is what happened. My understanding is that many of the EWR-LHR routes are on 3 cabin 763s. So (a) she paid for Y, and then upgraded to J with miles and $500 (sound right to me) (b) at the airport she upgraded J to F with $$$, and was in 1B (a GF seat).
My understanding is that you are not technically allowed to do this - double upgrade. I can see some over-entitled EWR GA playing god, seeing the double upgrade and sending poor smack addled teen to Y. Probably more likely than not.
Does UA actually prohibit upgraders from taking advantage of the "upgrade from business to first for cash at the gate"? At AA, you can't upgrade from econ to biz with certs or miles+co-pay and then upgrade to F using certs or miles+co-pay but if there's an offer at the gate to upgrade to F, everyone in biz is permitted to hand over the cash - in this case, allegedly $1150 worth.
