Upgrade for two plats on same pnr
 

Hi - wife and 4 year old daughter are flying together booked on one pnr. They both have "plat" status for the flight given my using miles from my platinum account and having the pplus card. in the past, when flying alone under this scenario, my wife has gotten the upgrade at the 5-day window. if there are two seats available when their pnr is up for upgrade, will it clear? i'm hesitant to split the pnr as i don't want them to end up in separate classes but i do want to maximize their shot at upgrades obviously. I actually called and asked about splitting and the csr said that if one upgrades and other doesn't, i'd be charged the unaccompanied minor fee for my daughter. Any advice/thoughts on best strategy? Thanks in advance!

You SHOULD be fine as EUA's are handled differently than battlefields. I believe if you haven't cleared before OLCI and still want the possible upgrades, then you may have to split the PNRs as battlefield upgrades don't process multiple people on one PNR.

Why would it matter where the miles come from? You have a non qualifying companion and they are both on award tickets:confused: Wife is Plat flying with a non qualifying companion correct?

I believe that the wife doesn't have Plat status (or possibly any status). Status is provided to the individuals from OP account when he booked the reward ticket (loophole / bug in the system). As a Pres Plus Card holder, the award tickets have EUA chances (and pretty good ones). I believe Plat Award ticket beats out Silver and Gold (unless Y or B fare is purchased).

correct. they have my status because i used my miles. they have eua chances because pplus credit card provides that as a benefit on award tickets booked from an account with elite status. whether it's a loophole or a bug is somewhat irrelevant. question is, if two plats are on the same pnr, will eua batch them through if 2 seats are available when their pnr comes up in the queue. IE is it viewed any different than if 2 seats were available and they were contiguous in upgrade queue on separate individual pnrs.

as an aside, i believe the prev poster is correct that plat with pplus on award tix process upgrades before gold and silver. it's basically the lowest bucket fare class to clear before gold and silver on non-Y/B immediately upgradeable fares.

thanks again!

I believe EUA should be fine -- however, if it doesn't clear EUA, it is a different story. It sounds like you don't want to deal with battlefield so I say stay with one PNR and it will drop the battlefield upgrades if you don't clear EUA.

Since your wife and daughter are booked on a reward ticket through your OnePass/Presidential Plus card, they will receive your benefits and be eligible for an upgrade ahead of time. However, since this is the result of a system glitch and not official CO policy, the chances of a battlefield upgrade on a reward ticket are slim to none considering most of Continental's employees have no knowledge of this new benefit associated with the credit card. As Platinum Elites, however, your wife and daughter will trump over all Gold/Silver non-Y/B members on the plane. Therefore, their chances of an upgrade are pretty good. Good luck!

this was from an earlier post by UAInsider. I know about the glitch that extends some elite benefits to flyers on award tickets from an elite's stash, but I have always thought that EAU was not one of the benefits, and that the PP+ card would only benefit the primary cardholder who is elite travelling himself on an award.

This is the official stance. However, I've seen non-elite people get upgraded with when the miles are from the elite member with a Pres Plus card.

Cool. My wife and kids will like that.

Hopefully they aren't on a flight i'm on. :D

I always joke around with my parents that when we take the bulkhead or get an upgrade, we are making another plat or gold mad... ;)

Can your parents adopt me? :)

Do we know if the same loophole (getting source mileage account status) applies to codeshare flights? I.e., CO ticket for UA metal. Booked UA/UA for my dad, but if it works on codeshares I'll refund and book him CO/UA instead :)

Doubt it. It's probably an issue in CO's systems only.

We've even seen CO posters complain that other *A carriers don't honor the free bags and such they're accustomed to when flying others on CO.