Just went through the whole thing with this process, and have some thoughts (no status, my miles, separate PNR):

I was able to get the reservation listed for IN class right after booking, with no issues from the agent (in this case it was an X/O mixed class booking so no additional miles needed). The reservation sat there with (IN class requested) all the way up until check-in (plane was a 319 so this was always a bit of a pipe dream).

The rest of the process all worked 100% seamlessly. At T-24:05 I got the standard confusing e-mail identical to what you get with instruments: United Airlines Upgrade Status Update for Confirmation X1Y2Z3. Upon checking in, she was added to the upgrade standby list and remained at #1 (of eventually ~35) all the way to the gate. A stroke of good fortune hit and there was a last-minute swap from 319 to 320, which meant things were back in business.

Notably, at one point inside of T-24, the load ticked to 7/12, at which point one pax was cleared from #2 on the list (probably CPU). This is consistent with the somewhat messy fact that until the gate everyone is on separate hidden waitlists. CPUs queue for R[secret], which is a distinct and often superior bucket to IN. When the GA grabbed the flight at the airport, the first four upgrades on the list were run in order, and so she ended up in F with a b/c of R on the reservation (again confirming that this is yet a different list). However, every system related to handling things went off without a hitch ^


Based on the exact way things happened, I wanted to put forward a hypothesis for the "correct" handling of I/IN waitlists at the gate. I believe that the correct priority is not PR-1, nor is it any "special" priority. Consistent with the codes mentioned in the new GG ONESTANDBY reference, I think that you get listed with a WxI code (x for status) and this should list you above CPUs (which if I recall are PR2), but behind waitlisted supported upgrades and behind any request for PN space (GS CPU, YBM-up). I really like this hypothesis because it's logically consistent with what the priority of the upgrade "should" be both before and at the gate. As it stood, the flight went R4 at one point right before departure, so I suspect no one on this particular flight was higher than a 1K on an E fare.

Also, possibly the third letter of the SSR code is actually the current b/c of the ticket ("class of service booked" from SHARES), which sort of lumps things together but an award waitlist is coming from X class which puts it at the bottom.

Thoughts based on experiences? Would be awesome if [MENTION=618261]runner450[/MENTION] or other insiders could comment. If I were braver, maybe I should have made a dummy revenue booking and then dumped an RPU on it just to see


But, for us, all's well that ends well