Flying this Saturday. CO Platinum, still not upgraded, although I see empty seats. I take this particular route about once a month, and have never NOT been upgraded at T-5 days.

I booked this ticket prior to the alliance switch, so I think maybe a problem arose from that.

I think the system is still recovering. Case in point: I was flying out of an elite-lite market last Friday. I usually get upgraded on Sunday night - 5 days out. Nothing on Sunday but plenty empty seats on seat map. Nothing on Monday either. Hmmmm. Nothing on Tuesday. Still plenty seats. Nothing on Wednesday and the PDA site showed 16/2. So I did what SBM12 has preached and tried pseudo booking. Still plenty available seats. Called Elite line and got transferred to Internet support. I was told that the system was working but she was puzzled why I was not upgrade. As matter of fact, no one was upgraded. She put me on hold to speak to her supervisor and told me that she will submit an incident report but cannot overwrite the system. But told me not to worry – I should get an upgrade eventually.

Thursday a few minutes before T-24, I noticed on my reservation that I was upgraded and so did the PDA site. Myself and 6 others got upgraded. Got upgrade notification 4 hours later.

Same thing this week – booked on Friday evening flight and no upgrade yet. However few have been upgraded and there are 6 seats available. So I guess I will just have to wait.

I am booked on Flight #1502 Saturday night (the 21st) from EWR-LAX. Status is showing 8 empty F seats on the 739 and no one has been upgraded at this point. Plat status here though I know the transcon flights can sometimes have their own quirks regarding upgrades. Should I call to see if there are issues or just wait (ya gotta know I'd love an upgrade for a dinner flight to LAX) or am I just being an anxious Plat?!

Perhaps related (or not) to EUA, but I was not added to the upgrade standby list last night when I checked in. First is booked full, so I'm not anxious about it, but you never know.

T minus 2 days... Flight leaving Saturday. Checked on PDA site, still has space available, still not upgraded yet (and I don't see my name on the upgrade list).

Called the Elite desk, spoke to someone... And they said,

"It's a very full flight, so we're still holding back some seats in case someone decides to make a last minute purchase."

I thought Platinums got priority over the selling of seats??

Wait. Odds of CO giving out EUAs in advance on the EWR-LAX/SFO routes are pretty low in general. Saturday night you've got a better chance, but still limited. If it is meant to be it will happen. Eventually.

:confused:

The agent was simply telling you that they are holding seats away from the R bucket so that people who want to pay for first class can do so. Why would Plats get priority over someone paying to sit in first?

On a related note, both of my upgrades cleared for my Saturday flights at 4 days out.

And you will not until you have checked in for the flight. :-:

I've only had one flight clear in advance T-3H. All others have been battlefield, including my IAH-SEA flight that had 19 empty seats according to PDA and only 7 elites listed on the ug standby list.

So are you saying that those wishing to purchase an upgrade get priority over EUA? I could have sworn that there had been numerous threads about this where CO categorically denied that this would be the case.

Tone is difficult to convey over typed medium, so please understand that I'm really not complaining or trying to whine about not getting an EUA. I would like to understand who gets what priority and how upgrades are processed. Honestly, that's it.

The more you know... Thanks :)

No, I'm saying that the agent was telling you that Continental is holding back seats for people to actually pay full fare for, not to upgrade.

I mentioned this in my earlier post, but this is not the first time I've taken this particular route. I do it on a near monthly basis, and have been for more than a year now. This is simply the first time I'd not received an upgrade notice at the usual 4-5 days out.

Could there be unusually high load factors given the Thanksgiving week? Sure, but again, I've taken this flight before (on the same weekend prior to Thanksgiving) before, and have been upgraded at the appropriate time before.

I just figured that the EUA system had run into a glitch due to the change to *A, and the upcoming UA integration.

Just got a 5 day out upgrade LAX - CLE, which is rare. So it worked for me!

I have had 3 out of 4 segments clear 5 days out (out Fri, back on Mon). However, the processing time has been a little off - maybe 45 minutes from the flight time. The 4th - IAH-SNA is sold out in F (as it frequently is).

Although on a 2nd ticket we purchased (only 4 days before flight) the EUA on that cleared sometime between T-24 and T-30 hours - was higher fare than the 1st ticket purchased earlier. R was available in the T-4 to T-1 time period but no EUA. But EUA did work on the 1st ticket at T-5.

So EUA is working by erratically.