I am silver elite on Continental. I recently traveled to Las Vegas and was upgraded both ways. In July I'm taking a short flight from EWR to FLL but I have two non-elites on my reservation. Will this some how prevent me from getting upgrades since they are on my reservation? If so, is there a way to break them off the existing reservation onto their own?

Yes, having non-elites on your PNR will affect your chances to get a free upgrade.
Call CO and ask them to split your PNR.

Thanks I just split them off.

Not only will "it affect your chances", there is no way of getting an upgrade if you have a non-elite on your reservation; upgrades are based on the lowest tier member of the reservation so one non-elite = no upgrade;
call and split the reservations.
And if you really want to be nice, give the seat to one of your non-elite travel companions.

What, are you kidding? And this is the system UA is switching to?

Oh man.

Let me know the next time you are on UA with 3 people, and UA's system lets you only have two in E+.

CO's system is worth the hassle to split PNRs, if I can sit up to x people in ELR and elite access seating.

Please be gentle, I am a newbie in this forum.

GF and I are looking at SAT--> FCO next May. The upgrade chart has me a little confused. Looks like there are several buckets I can book to be eligible to upgrade with miles and $$$. I assume these are prioritized by the price of the underlying fare bucket when it comes time to clear?

If we were to pay for E+ (?) as comfort insurance and request upgrades with miles and $$$, what is the liklihood of clearing for travel in 2012, mid-May, returning June 1 and when would we probably know if we cleared? Neither of us have status on CO or UA. Is status required to use this type of upgrade? How early do these ordinarily begin to clear?

Is there an opportunity in the booking engine to book directly into E+?

Any other advice or strategy you can think of?

Thanks

Well, first, this thread was about upgrades. I'm confused why ELR seating is being brought into it.

I understand (from a thread in the UA forum) that CO's system is meant to not reward elite companions when it means that other elites might not get upgraded. Fair enough. But it sounds like CO's system puts you in a position where you end up with nothing, or waste CS time splitting the PNR. That seems like the worst combination of everything bad.

In UA's current upgrade system, once you and a companion enter the xx hour upgrade window, you're listed individually based on your own status. If CO's system was extending that concept indefinitely beyond those windows, then that makes some sense. But that's not what this sounds like. CO's way sounds retaliatory: "if you thought we were giving you AND your friend free upgrades, hahaha, get a load of this..."

Are you looking at Continental flights or UA flights? Since you keep saying E+ (which is not available on Continental flights, although there are somewhat comparable ELR seats), I assume you are looking at UA flights. If so, I'm not as familiar with their process.

If you are looking at CO flights, then, yes, the co-pay varies depending upon the underlying fare class. Generally, the more you pay for your ticket the lower the co-pay required to upgrade. If an upgrade is not available at ticketing time, then you are put on a wait list, which is ordered by elite status. You don't need status to request (and get) an upgrade, but you will be towards the bottom of the list. There is no way to knowing when you would clear the wait list - it could come as late as the day of the flight. Generally, my experience is a few weeks before, but I have status.

I don't know what you mean by booking directly into the E+ seats. You choose an E+ (or ELR) seat after booking. It is not a different fare class, just a fee on top of the existing fare class. Be careful of some CO 767 planes as the ELR seats might not be much ELR.

By the way, back on topic, you can split off your reservation on-line - I've done it many times. You don't need to call.

It can be confusing to those who don't know how it all works. I don't know that it's a "bad" implementation. I think it's more the assumption that people travelling together don't want to be split up unless they say so. I can imagine a scenario in which one of the travelling party is upgraded when they preferred to sit with their companion and then the seat next to the companion is taken so they can't even downgrade after the fact. So Continental's system makes you state explicitly that you don't mind being separated from your companion instead of making the assumption that you do. I think it's six of one and half-dozen of the other.

You don't need to call CS to split the PNR. It's trivial to do it online.

I believe I'm looking only at CO flights since we plan to book 11 months out for a May 2012 flight. Our miles are with CO, so I assume I can't book UA with whom we have no miles to apply to an upgrade.

Sorry, just using E+ as a generic economy plus product. I now understand that's an extra fee that I guess wouldn't be refunded in the event the upgrade went through?

You can now move miles between CO and UA accounts by linking the accounts, so you should be able to apply your CO miles to a UA upgrade by doing this.

That's a good question about refunding the ELR fee if you get upgraded. I don't have any experience with this as I get ELR for free. Presumable, if you aren't sitting in an ELR seat anymore then you should get refunded.