Originally Posted by CapitolHill

Beware: United giveth and United taketh. My husband and I, both 1ks, upgraded to business with SWUs flying DCA-ORD-BKK (with a stop in Narita). We chose the route because upgrades were immediately confirmable. So far so good, right?

Wrong. On Friday, checking itineraries, I noticed seat assignments had changed so called and was told seats were changed because of downgrade to 777 ORD-NAR. No big deal---picked new seats on the 777 and on 747 connection and they immediately showed up in my itinerary.

Yesterday, Saturday, I compulsively checked itinerary again and learned that the entire itinerary had been changed by United, without so much as a e-mail notification, now from DCA-ORD-SFO-NAR-BKK. Except the connection ORD-SFO arrived in SFO an hour after SFO-NAR departure.

What happened? It seems that between the equipment change and a schedule change, there were no longer confirmed upgrades available, even though they had been reconfirmed on the old itinerary as recently as Friday. Someone, somehow, overnight on Friday, downgraded us.

After an hour on the phone with initially not very sympathetic CSA, got it all straightened out by a supervisor, adding an additional 5 hours to trip because we will return through SFO. Just remember---there's no such thing as a truly "confirmed" upgrade until your seat is in their seat.