Originally Posted by
KingCarlsbad
I was hoping to obtain a clear understanding of how upgrade list position is determined (when fare class is the same) for United travelers I upgrade using my Plus Points. These travelers would likely not have status and I would not be flying on the itinerary. I believe I have wrongly assumed they would have the status of the "redeeming" or Plus Points "providing" account holder (myself - 1K). For example, my wife has a Premium Economy ticket (SFO to CDG) and is behind other Premium Economy ticket holders who are Platinum or Gold. I am not necessarily complaining, just trying to confirm understanding. Thanks.
As mentioned there is no inherited status for 1K PlusPoints. If on a common PNR, all travelers on that PNR have the status upgrade priority of the highest elite (regardless of who purchased the ticket). If you were jointly traveling, all you have your 1K upgrade priority
GS PlusPoints do have a special feature as those are waitlist for a different upgrade inventory -- PN for GS PlusPoints. 1Ks and everyone else waitlist for PZ. Being in PremPlus will give your travelers a boost over those in economy waitlist for PZ (but not PN).
The gory details
Waitlist priority
Our system processes upgrade requests until three hours before departure. Any requests made after that will be handled by the gate agents. The waitlists are cleared in the following order:
- United Global Services® requests
- PlusPoints upgrades and MileagePlus Upgrade Awards
- Travelers with Premier status
- Fare class***
- United ClubSM Infinite and UnitedSM Presidential PlusSM cardholders
- United Corporate Preferred participants
- United Chase cardholders with $25,000 in annual spending
- Date and time of request
If your upgrade isn’t confirmed by the time you check in, we’ll add you to the upgrade standby list.
***On flights with United Premium PlusSM , we’ll process requests to upgrade to United Business® for customers ticketed in United Premium Plus (fare classes O, A, R) before processing requests for customers ticketed in Economy. If the request includes multiple travelers, then priority is based on the highest Premier status on the reservation.