Upgradeing Intern'l Codeshare flight - goofed
 

I book most of my flights on co.com, since we seem to be “encouraged” to do so. Booking CLE-GRU, mostly codeshares on United came up. So did CLE-ORD-GRU.

Now I find out that if you book a CO codeshare on ANY Star Alliance flight, including United, you cannot use CO miles to upgrade. Did two calls to CO to ask about this. Oh well, lesson learned (maybe). I guess on previous *Alliance flights, I did book with the other airline directly.

OK, maybe I read the above in FlyerTalk somewhere, but it did not register. Any comments (other than “read the darn rules before booking …")? At least, the seat is E+.

Yeah us regulars here at FT hate code shares! If you want to upgrade they make it difficult if not impossible.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry9630/5.0.0.591 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

I love code shares when they enable fuel dumps and cheaper flights. They do not always suck. :-:

Yea, I just got into a rhythm of always booking via co.com. It was not difficult to check for upgrades on Alliance partners, and look at the Terms & Conditions, which has the dreaded "Codeshare flights not eligible" message.
And so it goes ...

So, is it confirmed that I have no recourse? (can't believe that I'm still looking for a loophole ...).

No recourse. You can only use CO miles on a UA flight if booked in Y or B classes. This will change later obviously as the programs are integrated. But not right now.