Originally Posted by 747FC

We have decades of award flying and always got our I waitlist connections eventually cleared along with our confirmed O flights. Just had our first "PR-1+" battlefield clearance.

As soon as our O flight landed, I webchecked, and we went to 1 and 2 on the waitlist. There we remained until shortly before boarding, when we got the last two seats in I. There were some 40 people on the list.

While happy to get the seats waitlisted 330 days previously, I'm peeved with UA that it was a last minute process.

I should note that while I never referred to the GG codes or lines, I did inquire with a GF checkin agent about our waitlist status.

Originally Posted by findark

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?