Transpac - When I spoke to the first UA rep, and then the supervisor, I asked for "any" routing from CDG that had 2 F class seats available. Both, almost in harmony, told me that there were no F class seats available on the the non-stop, or thru LAX, IAD, ORD, FRA etc.....Looks like inventory management thinks CDG-US will be quite busy next year.

Geroge J - Same thing almost happened to me coming home from LHR last year. I booked the tickets 8 months in advance, got 2 first suites on the outbound, but could only book C class on the return. I called nearly every day to check on f class availability, and knew that there were at least 6 out of 11 seats open (my local UA rep confirmed my view of UA connection for that specific flight). When we checked in for our return, we were told the flight was very full, but we could use the F class lounge while waiting the flight. Nothing cleared, so we boarded in C class, and then 1 minute prior to the door being closed, we were moved to F class. We were very happy to get moved, don't get me wrong, but were very unhappy to find 6 out of the 11 seats filled with uniformed and deadheading UA employees. And to top if off, they all had their own "party" on the way home - lots of loud laughter, running around etc. Not exactly what we were expecting out of F class....So my assumptions were correct - unless they invisibly blocked those seats for deadheading crew, there were seats available for weeks and weeks prior to departure.

Hope this does not happen to us again for this trip, but who knows!

SFOPremex

[This message has been edited by SFOPremex (edited 11-21-2000).]