I just returned from London and had an interesting occurence at LGW check in. Back in Oct I purchased an upgradable ticket EWR-LGW on flights CO 28- 2/15 outbound on CO 29-2/19. My tickets showed the correct dates and times. About 3 weeks ago (within the prescribed 30 day rule), I received a call from CO telling me I was upgraded on both segments & given my seat assignments. All went as planned until I went to check in on my return to EWR yesterday where the desk agent in LGW asked if I had changed my ticket? I said 'no', and gave her my certificate for the upgrade. She then handed me back my confirmed seat 3K and pointed the way to the CO Presidents Club. Upon arrival at the Club, the staff looked at me strangely and asked why was I there so early. (CO Flight 29 leaves at 11 am-- it was now 9 am). I told her I didn't think it was too early. She then had me look at my actual ticket, which showed I was on CO 19-- on the 19th, leaving at 3 pm! in BF!!! I was then told that there was no way I could leave on the earlier flight in BF, as even though there were plenty of BF seats available (about 20!!), no upgrades were allowed after 72 hrs. Obviously there was a mistake made by OnePass. I did not want to wait the extra 6 hours, so I called OP service and was told, sorry, nothing we can do--we somehow booked you on CO 19 in BF, so my alternative was to fly coach on CO 29 or wait the 6 long hours.
Luckily for me a sympathetic rep at the PC, took me down to the ticket desk (through customs again) and explained the situation. At first they were adament that while I could 'stand by' for coach on CO 29, no way could I get upgraded to BF. I finally convinced them that I never received any written or verbal confirmation of the change on my original ticket, and therefore someone on their end had made the error. They then said they would 'fully investigate who at OP in Housron was responsible' and gave me my original upgraded 3K seat on CO29 leaving at 11am.
In the end, it was explained to me that what probably happened was all upgrade seats on my original flight were sold out (very, very hard to belive--as of that AM it was still showing Z9), and thus they put me on a different flight in BF.

PS-- the good part of this story (aside from the finally being upgraded on my original flight), was that on my outbound, at the Virgin Club in EWR, no one took my upgrade coupon- !!
PSS--It was great meeting up with WorldBanker at the PC club at LGW.




[This message has been edited by mauld (edited 02-20-2001).]