Originally Posted by Globalman

Ok so my suggestion is this: Call up and waitlist the flight as a Companion award (and if neccessary, book a companion seat as well in anyone else's name). No need to issue, just book.

As your given highest priority, once you have your U class seat confirmed, cancel the companion booked seat, and tell them to intend to issue it as either an upgrade redemption or a full ticket redemption. This is your right how you finally issue your ticket, once you have the U class seat you can issue it anyhow you want to.

Originally Posted by tedhl

how sure we are with this ? at least this is definitely not what the MPO agents said to me every time I booked a companion ticket. they always make sure I understand it very well that I'm sure I want a companion award (double/triple asked a few times), because they said these have different availabilities as normal full award and even if I get confirmed on a companion award, if in the end I want a full award instead, I need to check availability for full award at that point. but, that said, I haven't tried this though, changing from companion to full award in the end...