Originally Posted by
BZRORG
Yes, I guess that is better than nothing. I was able to speak to her and she mentioned that she spoke with the purser and he spoke with the gate agent and gate agent kept saying her ticket, and I quote, "did not meet the threshold of being upgraded, there are 4 other 1Ks that did not get upgraded." 100% Bizarre. Another head scratcher is they kept saying that upgrades work for domestic tickets not international. Has there been massive turnover of the gatestaff in london? They have been highly competent when I have had to deal with them previously. It was also my understanding that upgrades are processed by the computer? Can a gate agent intervene in running the list? An hour before boarding, there were 15 or so on the upgrade list so i dont understand how some can be processed and others left off?
Originally Posted by
jsloan
The gate agent processes upgrades at the gate, in the order specified by the computer.
You state that you're livid that UA would "pull a stunt" like not processing the remaining upgrades, but what would the motivation be? Just someone being mean for no reason?
There was a flight recently where they were forced to keep four seats for crew rest because the crew rest pods were inoperative. I wonder if this plane had a similar issue. It doesn't make sense that they would fail to process the upgrades without some sort of cause, particularly after a reminder. (That said, the comment about needing the miles + copay is strange; it reeks of either a miscommunication or a really inattentive / rushed agent. In the future, I'd suggest saying something like "when are you planning to process the upgrades? Should I go ahead and board and then move up?"
I am sceptical that is a good-but-nonobvious reason (like the crew rest issue) for not running the upgrade in this case, since it appears that the request for O was also not fulfilled, and that cabin also shows several empty seats. Maybe there were a ton of inop seats, but that feels too unlikely to be an explanation. I think it's more likely the gate agent was messing something up, but I also can't see a motivation for doing it intentionally.
Originally Posted by
lincolnjkc
That has always been my understanding however after my trip home from JNB last week. Standing near the GA I heard a phone call where the GA asked someone to "hold off on upgrading anyone" (from other conversations got the sense there may have been weight/balance considerations, i.e. agents unable to seat couples together despite a light load in Y) -- 10-15 minutes later and about 5 minutes before boarding I got the "you've been upgraded!" notification so I politely approached GA #1 to ask for a new BP... that GA passed me off to GA #2 with a "he claims he was upgraded" -- GA #2 printed a new BP but also seemed unaware that any UGs had been processed.
Based on that I'm wondering if at least for small INTL outstations UA is having someone in Ops/SOC run upgrades rather than doing it at the gate... but LHR is big enough I also wouldn't lump them into the "small outstation" category.
Tangent: My understanding is that flight (JNB-EWR) typically has some weight/balance restrictions due to the length, but I think it manifests only as blocked seats in Y, not in J or O, so it shouldn't directly affect upgrades. It does affect clearing Y standby, though, so sometimes it can look like they leave people behind even though it's full from a w/b perspective. Not sure what was the disconnect with GAs knowing whether upgrades had run or not, though.