Has EUA Stopped Running?
 

I have a LAX-IAH-SJO flight this Sunday and my LAX-IAH cleared the EUA. However, even though my IAH-SJO flight shows R/RN > 0, I am not upgraded (I called CO yesterday and was told that the "sweep" will happen midnight last night and there's nothing they can do to upgrade me).

As far as I know, the "sweep" only happens once a day and it's usually in 24/48/72/96 etc. hours prior to your departure time. All my flights are marketed and operated by CO, so there shouldn't be any out of sync problems. How do I make sure that I am on the upgrade list or get upgraded since it has been showing R/RN > 0 for the past few days!

Sometimes, having faith in the system just doesn't work because computer says no! :mad:

Maybe you're not next in line for the upgrade?
You got upgraded on your other segment, so I'm sure your reservation is fine, and you'll just have to wait until the system processes you.

Just a point of clarification, just because it's marketed and operated by CO and even bought from CO doesn't mean it can't be out of sync. It most certainly can be out of sync.

That's likely not your case here since you received the first of two upgrades.

Since CO's upgrade system is opaque, and you have no visibility into it (no Upgrade: Pending or Upgrade: Waitlisted notation), you just have to have blind faith that the system will work and take care of you if appropriate.

It's unfortunate that they don't have a DL-like or UA-like system where they run upgrade as soon as space is available inside your window, but CO is probably working around a lousy back end system, and apparently this is the best they can do.

And unless the UA flight has a GID at the gate, you'll have no idea where you stand on the upgrade waitlist. You'll also have to wait until you get to the gate to see where you are, unlike co's system which will show you the battlefield upgrade order as soon as you check in. @:-)

I know you have a CO flight, just highlighting some differences with UA

Thank you! I am aware of the CO EUA problems (i.e. not showing Waitlisted/Pending) when they started to offer complimentary EUAs to UA Elites this year. However, it's kinda absurd that an agent can't physically book me into the R/RN class even though it is available (she told me it is available but there's can physically book me into that class)!

:confused: why should they? There could be 10 people ahead of you on the upgrade list - the fact that you can see R availability doesn't mean you're next.

I am confused by this. How would someone be ahead of me when there are already 3 EUA sweeps. If PP is ahead of me, he/she would be upgraded by now and then Plats/1Ks, and now it's past the Gold/1P sweep. Am I wrong to think that if R > 0 before your sweep, you should get the EUA since other higher elites would have been upgraded already?

1) Upgrades may are not necessarily run at the stated times, so there may be PP, Plats/1K ahead of you that have not been upgraded yet. 2) Did you ever stop to think there might be more than one of you at your elite level? As a matter of fact, the number of elites at each level increases significantly as you work down the list. If R>0, that tells me that there's probably a line of people ahead of you waiting to be upgraded.

I don't want to sound rude, but I want to understand the situation. If my flight shows R = 4 now (i.e. < 3 days prior to departure), then the PP, Plats/1K and Gold/1Ps should have cleared by now (since PP/Plat/1K clear 5 days prior and 1P/Gold clear 3 days prior). Even if R>0 and there's a PP in front of me, the PP won't clear because there's a line? Don't CO start clearing the upgrades until R=0?

2) Yes I know there are Plats/PP/1Ks at the same elite level as me!

But if R wasn't available 5 days in advance when the window arrived for PP, Plat, 1K, etc. then no upgrades would have happened then. Same thing if R wasn't available at 3 days out, still nobody would have been upgraded.

What's likely to happen is that the next time the sweep happens, those 4 seats will be filled, starting with the PP, Plat, 1K, etc. and working down from there. Or they will remove some / all of the R inventory because the revenue management system believes they can sell more seats.

The key difference though is that nothing happens until each "sweep" occurs and then the available R inventory is filled according to status. No R inventory at that instant = no upgrades happen then until the next sweep.

As a CO Plat, I can tell your for sure that EUA does not run predictably every day, as you are assuming. Also, you are not taking into account higher levels of elite that may have (and probably did, to a certain extent) purchase tickets after the 5 day EUA run (if in fact it ran). Nowhere does CO 'guarantee' that EUA will run at the listed times.

Indeed, & in fact, for those elites who have done SDCs, -- this has worked in their favor (otherwise, there would be little chance for an EUA w/in T-24 when doing an SDC)!^

While CO shows you the battlefield order at checkin, it doesn't necessarily show you the ordering that will be used. It depends on which system handles your upgrade.

One of the advantages of UA's approach is that the list becomes authoritative inside of four (4) hours.

CO's list, OTOH, does not become authoritative until checkin close, which in some cases is after boarding has commenced. Since EUA and the visible upgrade list use different orderings, this could be a problem.

In fact if CO did have GIDs at more gates like other airlines have, it could be more problematic when the lists complete and customers watch #3 get upgraded while #1 and #2 remain the same.


Remember there is no waitlisting for EUA upgrades with CO. The computer gets to you and processes it when it gets to you. You don't know if the R space was just released and others are ahead of you. Or if the R was there all along but EUA never ran. It's all part of the mystery and lack of transparency behind EUA.

Since we have no visibility into the upgrade system on CO, the agents aren't allowed to override it in an attempt to maintain some semblance of integrity.

You seem to have this expectation that if you're inside the window and there's upgrade space, you're entitled to it. While that would be the case on UA or DL, it's not the case with CO.

If there is R=1 and I buy an F seat right now, R goes to 0 and you don't get your UG.

Not necessarily. If F=3 and R=1, the F you purchased doesn't come out of R. Revenue management is behind both UA and CO's upgrade schemes and none of us have the crystal ball inside either one. UA's upgrade scheme and CO's both have advantages and disadvantages. Let's not pretend either one is the be all end all of complementary upgrade programs.