If CO were to ask me what my #1 complaint against the airline is, I'd say that the mysterious waitlist is.

The 1)elite status and 2)time placed on list priority is extremely misleading.

A person buying a cheap fare with low elite status can easily get ahead of a Platinum Elite flying a full Y fare for an upgrade. This happens 100% of the time when the waitlist is closed and this has happened to me on several occaisions on CO.

As an example, lets say I book a full Y to go EWR-NRT; I'm Platinum. I call to use the 15k miles to upgrade the flight only to find out no inventory is available. So I ask to be waitlisted. And am told no. Why? Because a few weeks and/or months before I made my extremely expensive Y purchase, some non-Platinums clogged up the waitlist list with upgrade requests on lower fare purchases. As such, they will have a shot at an upgrade before I'm even able to get on the list.

Therefore, time to book and time to get on the waitlist superceeds Elite level and paid fare class. And this is something I have a big problem with. If there is truly a software problem at the root of this, then they need to not allow any non-Platinum from waitlisting. And/or not allow anyPlatinum flying on a non-Y/H/K fare from waitlisting. Or easiest yet, open up the waitlist to an infinite number of passengers ...and then sort out who will clear the waitlist by elite status, fare paid, and date/time booked.