Originally Posted by KebaNYC
My experience is different for EWR and everywhere else:
In EWR if you ask at the counter they will tell you that it has to be done at the gate. When you ask at the gate they will tell you that there is no chance of the upgrade and they will not add your companion to the list. Twice I have been told that there is no chance of the upgrade and got battlefields for my companion after I got them on the list at the President's Club.
In every other city that I have been in this year the agent has happily added my companion to the list at the check in counter (even if not a possibility) and on one flight from SAN we both got the UG when checking in 7 hours prior to departure.
Keba
While I agree that the EWR agents aren't the most gracious people to deal with when it comes to anything customer-service related, I don't think it's all so one-sided. Everytime I'm waiting for my flight I see elites hovering around the desks like vultures, each one asking "am I still on the waitlist?" or "has FC checked in full?" and when they tell them that they're still on the waitlist, that inevitably leads to "oh, well how many people are ahead of me?" etc. If I were a gate agent I would be annoyed too if people were asking me the same questions over and over while trying to prepare for boarding and dealing with more important issues (e.g. standby passengers, overbooked flights, preparing the flight manifest, etc.).
This doesn't excuse anyone from being rude, but EWR is packed with elites and the agents have to deal with this all day, every day. Any elites who fly so much with CO (especially the upper tier elites) ought to know how the system works and that if they don't specifically ask the gate agent if their upgrade cleared, that doesn't mean that they've just forfeited their FC seat. Unfortunately, as long as the process remains so opaque, the paranoia and "that agent screwed me over" mentality will continue, and we'll keep vilifying the EWR gate agents. For all I know, I may be the fool here because maybe there is a lot of funny business that goes on at the GA's discretion, but with the present system there's no way of knowing, and I don't recall seeing any posts on here from people working for CO other than FAs who can fill us in.
I think the system needs to be fixed so that everyone knows where they stand on the UG list and there should be uniformity in how these things are handled. I've heard that DL (I think) has a system in place that does just that. Again, I don't think any rudeness is acceptable, but I think it's only fair to acknowledge that we're all part of the problem too and that EWR gate agents aren't just a bunch of angry people trying to make your life miserable. My family, on the other hand...now that's a different story!
