Originally Posted by
Flyingwasabi
im just curious about it as i’ve heard it go both ways.
some say for a long-haul international flight, even if there are empty seats in business/first class, they will not put oversold passengers forward, they will leave those seats open and put the extra passengers on next/other flights.
some say it’s just like domestic, they will use the extra business/first class seats to accommodate the extra passengers. If this is the case, how does UA determine who gets moved forward. Unlike domestic flight there is a CPU list to move people. Is it based on elite status like GS->1k->Plat, or they just simply put the last few to check-in (those who check in after every seat in E has been taken)?
They will upgrade passengers to business / first class (called an operational upgrade or op-up) before denying boarding to anyone, the same as domestic.
They follow the same order that they would for CPU -- first by status and then by fare class. There is no advantage to waiting to check-in with the hope of getting an upgrade.
Operational upgrades are exceptionally rare, and not generally worth trying to plan around. Keep in mind that if you aim for an op-up and miss, you'll be in economy on a flight that will have
every seat filled.
Note that in the case of Involuntary Denied Boarding -- i.e., when they oversell the flight and cannot find enough volunteers -- there is no guarantee of cash compensation on flights inbound to the US, except from Canada or otherwise as according to applicable law. AFAIK, only EU member states and Israel have such a law. The clauses in the
Contract of Carriage only apply to a US or Canadian origin flight; this is the clause for all other origins:
Denied Boarding Non-U.S.A./Canada Flight Origin - Where there is an Oversold UA flight that originates outside the U.S.A. or Canada, no compensation will be provided except where required by local or international laws regulating Oversold flights.
Consider this one more reason to go ahead and get a seat assignment sooner rather than later.
Non-status passengers without a seat assignment are apparently first on the denied boarding list, according to the report they issued last year. (It's somewhat contradictory, though).