Hi everyone. I'd like to get some thoughts from you on a problem I recently had on CO, where I was apparently removed from the upgrade waitlist for unknown reasons.

Here's what happened, and I hope this isn't too much detail.

1. I am a United 1K member,
2. On 4/8 I made a reservation for myself and a non-status companion to travel over the just-ended Memorial Day weekend on this itinerary: SFO-IAH-PTY-IAH-SFO.
3. Mileage was to be credited to our respective UA accounts.
3. We booked into E class on the outbound and T class on the return. (Coach)
4. On 5/8 I got the idea to try to upgrade the itinerary with miles from my OnePass account. I applied for the upgrade online and IAH-PTY and PTY-IAH cleared immediately. SFO-IAH and IAH-SFO waitlisted.
5. SFO-IAH cleared on 5/20, eight days before departure.
6. On 5/28, the night before departure, I printed my itinerary on paper. It confirmed the first three segments were upgraded and the last as still waitlisted.

<My friend and I spent three days getting mosquito bites in Panama, and then:>

7. The evening before our return flight, I checked continental.com and found that IAH-SFO was not upgraded and that the leg was no longer marked as being on the upgrade list. (PTY-IAH was still upgraded)
8. Noting that the upgrade list carried the warning that only checked-in passengers would be displayed, we checked in online. We still didn't appear on the upgrade list.
9. At this point I called Continental in the States. I spoke to a gentleman who didn't really seem to understand the problem. All he could tell me was that there was a note in the record that the "upgrade failed". He tried to put me back on the waitlist but told me "it didn't work". We were on the phone for 20 minutes.
10. I didn't have time to call back and try to get a more knowledgeable agent. Naturally, First was full the next morning so I decided not to try to pursue it further.
11. On the layover at IAH, I asked an agent at the President's Club for her ideas on what happened. She asserted that if one tries to upgrade with miles and the upgrade doesn't clear 24 hours before departure, that you're taken off the upgrade list and that the any remaining first-class seats are given to Elites. Surely that can't be true, but I thanked her politely.

So my question for you is this: What do you think happened? Is what the PC agent told me true? Does any one have any experience with crediting a flight to one FF program but using miles from another program for upgrades?

I'm going to send a polite letter, but would like to get your take.

Thanks

CO's upgrade process is not nearly as clean as UA's for mileage upgrades. What the agent told you was sort of correct.

At 24 hours out, you're removed off the waitlist, and you're supposed to get on the airport upgrade list (at checkin). There is no action taken off the airport upgrade list until you're at the gate (think the departure display on UA), so even if you got on the list at the gate, there would be a shot.

UA waitlists every UDU, so the waitlist priority would take into account each customer's relative priority beforehand. CO, OTOH, does not waitlist Elite upgrades -- their computer sweeps the flights and processes them as it gets to them. Theoretically, if you're waitlisted for an upgrade, it should clear before an Elite would get upgraded, but if it gets stalled or doesn't clear as has been documented on the board, then there's a chance the Elite sweep would run and may trump someone on a waitlist.

Next, these Elite sweeps do not end inside 24 hours, so if you fail to clear a mileage upgrade cutoff, the Elites can definitely trump the mileage upgrade as Elite upgrade processing continues inside that window.

But Channa, if I understand your explanation, this doesn't really explain why OP did not get on the UG standby list when he checked in on-line after failing to clear before T-24, does it? That's apparently just a screw-up by CO?

That's what it sounds like. Everything else worked "as designed" except for the transfer from the upgrade waitlist (which always expires at T-24) to the upgrade standby list. I believe that transfer is supposed to be automatic for mileage upgrades, though it's relatively recent and maybe they're still working out the kinks. But even if the transfer wasn't automatic at check-in, the original poster should have been able to request placement on the standby list at the airport. However, it actually sounds like s/he did not request this as first class was already full ("I decided not to try to pursue it further"). That was potentially a mistake, because OP would have gone toward the top of the standby list, and if there were no-shows/misconnects/cancellations there could have been a good chance of the upgrade.

WillFlyer -- I would send a private message to CO Insider here with your reservation details and a brief explanation of what happened. He and his team should be able to figure out why you were not automatically added to the upgrade standby list at check-in. It's possible that the fact that you were crediting mileage to a non-OnePass program threw the system off.

It's "sort of" true. All waitlists expire 24 hours prior to departure. That's outlined in the Overview of Mileage Upgrade Policies on CO's website. I believe it's a function of the GDS -- revenue waitlists also expire at the 24h mark. And then you get added to the upgrade standby list, but that list does not get processed until shortly before departure by the gate agent. Mileage upgrades are given higher priority on the upgrade standby list than free elite upgrades (although mileage upgrades would be prioritized by elite status too).

However, the "wrinkle" is that between the 24 hour mark and "shortly before departure" CO's Elite Upgrade Automation system may continue to run, and it will process free elite upgrades if inventory is released by revenue management in that timeframe. It's not completely logical that free elite upgrades can usurp mileage upgrade requests during this window, but that's the way the system works. Certainly as a non-elite, you have no inherent priority claim to a mileage upgrade over a free elite upgrade.

Thank you very much everyone for your opinions. I will send a message to COInsider as suggested, and, failing that I will send a letter.