Originally Posted by jsloan

I suspect it's more of an oversight than an intentional decision. I fully expect the other shoe to drop on the concept of waitlisting any day.


When did you work at UA? Keep in mind that most of the community's knowledge is anecdotal; UA rarely makes official announcements on these things, at least in the level of detail that board members are interested in.

Prior to departure, AFAIK, upgrades have always cleared before waitlisted upgrades in practice, because upgrade space (PZ, used to be R) is higher in the inventory hierarchy than award space (IN or I). When Revenue Management opens seats beyond the paid classes, they'll open upgrade space before award space. This has gotten somewhat convoluted recently as they've started to do PNx PZ0 INx I0, which allows for Global Services Upgrades and Platinum and higher awards, but not for 1K or lower upgrades. I'm not sure whether they would clear IN in this situation if there were members on the PZ list, but anyone who canceled a waitlisted IN award would be able to book at the saver price.

At the gate, this board has long talked about "displaced business class passenger" status for waitlisted I segments. I've never been sure it was an official policy -- it doesn't make a ton of sense that award priority would invert itself on the day of travel -- but I do know that some people were able to convince a gate agent to put them on this list, bypassing all other upgrades. It mostly seems impossible these days.