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I have read thread after thread about Continental's EUA program. The electronic upgrades have been a part of the system for a while now. How is it going? Is it good? Bad? No difference? Let's take a poll.
I have flown 4 flights under the EUA system.
I am a Platium, was traveling on discount fare,upgraded on all segments.
I have 8 more segments coming up in the next week or so, I will see if the results are similar. Any others out there?

It appears to me that the Gold and Silvers are doing most of the complaining. They're afraid the Platinums like you are now going to grab all the upgrade seats.

I believe "Lazy Platinums" was one of the terms bandied around.

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Robert Johnson
danville 1K

I'm Platinum and have received EUA upgrades on all four flights I've taken since it started. As far as the 'Silver-Gold-Platinum' competition for FC seats, on all four (EWR-ATL & EWR-ORD R/T segments) there were plenty of empty FC seats available upon take off!--In fact,on my return from ORD yesterday morning, a late arriving Silver casually asked if instead of his coach seat, could he take one of the available FC, and was told "sure!".

Mauld, this is interesting information and I thank you for it.

Rx weatherman (You told me what you do http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif DId you see empty space on your flights in first/business one??

I guess maybe the thing to do is when you check in or go to the President's Club to ASK if there is upgrade space available.

(OK? Can you ask for upgrade space at the President's Club? I know I can at the RCCs!)



[This message has been edited by Catman (edited 11-01-2000).]

My first EUA's came through last night. I received separate e-mails for each segment. One is time-stamped 12:22 CST, the other 12:41 CST.

One of my return segments (both of which are eligible for upgrade at midnight tonight) shows F5, the other A3 F0.

System works fine from my point of view.

(BTW, absent EUA's, I would be on the phone at midnight. I am not (and never was) a lazy Platinum.

Mauld-

Shouldn't the late-arriving silver have automatically been put in FC if a seat was available?

Catman,
On my four fligts, two were filled in FC. The other two each had 1 empty seat. Also, on the two with the empty, three of the people in the front cabin with uniformed crew memebers. You don't often see that on Continental, but with FC not being full, why not!

Gold, 2 segments do far (both discounted fare), neither upgraded.

BoSoxFan45, from the looks of this, the Silver arrived, out of breath, and just as they were closing the doors. I imagine either he just made the flight or was on a later one and told he might be able to make this one. In any event with 3 seats still open--on a flight from ORD to EWR at 7 am--he was welcomed to any FC seat.
Catman, yes you can ask at the PC or when just checking in at any CO counter. They should be able to upgrade you if seats are still available.

1 for 1 I'm GOLD going on PLAT....FC was wide open though.

Danville1K:

The term "lazy Platinum" was coined, by that lunatic Boomer, to refer to the platinum that doesn't call ahead for an upgrade and ends up sitting in coach. It was used to illustrate that some people still fly Continental even if they don't get any upgrades. My point was to show that continental doesn't need to give these people upgrades, since they fly continental anyway. As opposed to the hard working gold or silver that if they dont get upgrades might jump ship to a different airline.

No BOOMER, you coined 1/2 of it! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif
You always talked about being lazy in regards to upgrades. I took the proper marketting and turned it into a catchphrase! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by cigarman (edited 11-01-2000).]

For those of you watching the scoreboard:

I'm on the 7:35 a.m. flight Sunday from SAT to IAH. I'm Platinum, so my EUA eligibility kicks in at midnight tonight. Right now the flight is showing A6 F0. They're unlikely to release F seats in the next 3 hours, but they're also not going to sell six full-fare seats on this flight between now and Sunday.

I'll keep checking ITN, and let you know if/when my upgrade clears.

Similar situation here to Upgrademe:

Sun IAH to MCO, currently (10pm 4 days out) showing A9 F0

Thu MCO to IAH, currently showing A8 F5.

We'll see.

Upgrademe, what concerns me about that situation is that although they will not likely sell all of those full fares, as many folks have said here, we have now idea what the pecking order is within the Plats on those flights.

Stay tuned.....

Platinum member 6 for 6 in the last week. We need to hear from more Gold and Silver members to see if this system is working for them!!

I am Gold Elite and currenty batting 3 out of 4 this week.

Tuesday, AUS-IAH: Cleared 1 day before the flight
Tuesday, IAH-PHX: Cleared 2 days before the flight
Thursday, PHX-IAH: Cleared this morning (A5 D5 F5)
Thursday, IAH-AUS: Still waitlisted in Y (A5 D5 F5)*

*The inventory is as of 2224 CST, 01 NOV 2000. Any reason why I haven't cleared???

If it's a Y fare and you are Gold...WHY DIDN"T YOU JUST CALL IN AND GET THE UPGRADE?
You still have the right...

FROM THE GREAT CONTINENTAL ITSELF:

Full Coach (Y)/Northwest -26/-27 Fares
> Platinum/Gold Elite members - Upgrade at the time of ticketing and upon
request any time prior to departure*
> Silver Elite members - Automatic upgrade after midnight two days prior to
departure

*Upgrades requested outside the automated three-day window must contact
their Elite Priority Line and provide your ticket number for processing.

Are we getting a little sarcastic here? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Since the EUA just kicked in for flights this sunday I decided to check ITN for trips I often take. Sunday is one of my more frequent travel days, I checked my 3 most common destinations.

Of course this sunday might not be typical of future performance.

EWR-LAX:

of the 6 non-stops,

3 show A2 F0
2 show A3 F0
1 shows A4 F0

This is lower F availability than I've seen in the past.

EWR-PBI

4 non-stops

2 show A9 F9
1 shows A5 F3
1 shows A6 F0

I've never not been upgraded flying to/from PBI and it looks like FC is going to remain easy on this route. Of course the fact that 3 of the 4 flights are 757s helps.

EWR-SEA

4 non-stops

3 show A0 F0
1 shows A1 F1

This is looking slim. I've had good success on this route. Of course those 737-800s don't have that big a FC section.

Boomer:

I was looking at the availibility on Sea-EWR in early December and found no F seats with most of the flights showing 6 to 8 A and similar D. I have a "positive space upgrade coupon" to use as insurance, but they have to put seats in F.

To fly on a 73g or 8isn't my idea of fun, I may connect on NW.

Curiously codeshares with NW show F seats arleady.

Any thoughts on Wed 4:00 upgrade normality.

Well, neither of my SAT-IAH-DFW upgrades cleared overnight despite ITN showing F0/F4 this morning. I called in and the upgrade was manually processed for the second segment.

The representative I spoke with insisted that the system will not look at segments individually. In other words, if you can't get F all the way through, you won't get F at all. I realize that Vulcan was given contrary information, but I'm simply reporting was I was told.

On 10/29 I was traveling SEA - IAH - PVD and called at Midnight for the Upgrade. I am a Silver Elite. The agent told me that there was a new EAU and that she would not be able to it. She looked for me and stated that the first leg didn't look promising (with two seats left), but IAH to PVD had six seats left and should not be a problem. She added that I would get an e-mail confirming the upgraded leg once the EAU got around to my flights.
I woke up at 8:00am (11:50am flight), found no email from OnePass, and decided to call and see what was up. The agent checked and stated that SEA - IAH was full, IAH - PVD had one seat left. I was then given the upgrade. I asked her why I was not upgraded by the EAU several hours ago and she stated that she did not know. She stated that there are still some things that are being worked out!

UpgradeMe:

A helpful piece of experience. I was told otherwise. However, I sincerely wonder whether your situation was unusual, or the agent was wrong, since this would be a significant issue.

I wonder if one of the previous posts, where there were two separate emails, is indicative of a per segment upgrade. Would think that the system processes everything based on flight, not a person's itinerary. Any other experiences out there?

So far 4/4 with EUA, myself.

SFO IAH TPA IAH SFO

All emailed and confirmed at the 3 day window except return IAH SFO, which was emailed day prior to flight.

4 for 4, plus 2 for 2 last week, 6 for 6 total on EAU.

Platinum.

UpgradeMe & JL2,

I would agree that the information given to UGMe was incorrect. I flew Tuesday to RSW. On Friday night ITN showed my BOS-EWR segment as F8, but my EWR-RSW segment showed F0. When I got home from a halloween party, I had an e-mail notifying me that I had been upgraded on my BOS-EWR segment.

BTW,

The EWR-RSW segment opened up at about 7PM Monday Night. I got on the phone right away and was able to secue the UG.

Jaguar, I take it your referring to flight 122.

That flight has good upgrade ability, except friday's a tough one.

Boomer:

Thanks for the info.

As schedules change, I may be forced into TWA home and out the following day.

I've got twelve segments on CO in next two weeks, and I'll let everyone know what happens.

I am platinum and I am 6 for 6 with the EAU system. I like it because I don't have to call three times a day or keep checking ITN. One of the UG's was at the gate because I missed a connection. At least for my six segments, elites were being upgraded at the gate, so us lazy platinums were not taking all the F seats

After I posted about my IAH-AUS segment not being upgraded despite the no. of F inventory available, I called CO.

The agent informed me that the upgrade was available and she was unsure why my upgrade wasn't process. The agent stated that they are still experiencing some glitches. That is pretty obvious. I wonder if CO performed some type of beta testing on this EUA deal. God knows our company performs a lot of testing before a modification in our automated systems is implemented.

Moral of the story: call after lunch to check if upgrades are available. It seems like the automated upgrade system locks out CO agents from manually upgrading immediately after midnight and/or early morning.

TheSilb: What's your status?

General question: are people seeing more "F" inventory on ITN? That "F5" in AusTxHiker's post really caught my eye. I haven't seen a flight with F5 for ages. Part of the problem for me with the call in system was that CO released very few F seats in the system, and had to keep checking ITN constantly to find one. If their yield management algorithms change because of the EUA, that makes a big difference to me.

I would be really curious to know if the yield management algorithms changed. I am flying for the first time next week, and at least on the flights I am on, the pattern seems about the same.

You would think that if they were going to change the yield process, it would be to release seats LATER rather than SOONER, as they can now release seats later and give them to who THEY want to. Just a thought.

dgolds, I see plenty of F8s and F9s, it just depends on the time of day/day of week.

dgolds and mws:

I've been curious whether the algorithims will change, or have been changed as well. Boomer made a recent surmise that he thought there have been less F seats released in advance; I have a similar unscientific sense that this is perhaps the case. mws, yes it would seem that a later release would be more advantageous to CO.

Have flown LAX-EWR several times on the exact same days and flights three time during a six week window. Usually the redeye from LAX is always well open in advance, but now A9 F0 for a mid November flight on a Tuesday night. Hardly a seat sold, however. Also have noticed that out of EWR to LAX there is absolutely nothing non-stop on a Wednesday. No seats sold, but all F0. Realize that EWR is not that generous anyway wifh F seat releases, but seemed even more stingy...hmmmm....

any other observations...

Like Jeff said, this are highly unscientific studies, but my sense is fewer F seats are being made available.

That said, it still seems NW holds back far fewer seat than continental does.

Of course, if the EUA system really does run all the time, then the holding back of seats isnt as big an issue, because the computer would grab them before we could call and get them.

I'm at 50% with the auto upgrades (well, OK, 1 for 2). Since I regained Platinum status at end of July, I was 14 for 14, so the new system is deninitely a step down for me! I'm hoping/assuming this was an anomoly. Actually, no-one should ever be 100% upgraded -- keeps one humble! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Zip:

I agree humility is an admirable trait, one which I strive to attain.

The problem is everytime I discover that I'm humble, I get so proud I want to boast about it http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Humility is such that as soon as you know that you've finally achieved it - you've lost it! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Doc, a little late aren't we? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Well, my flight is on Monday morning, still haven't seen anything from OP yet, hoping it will come later tonight

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Al

Al,

Have you made gold yet?

If not, Silvers get an UG at the 2 day mark on Y fares only. Otherwise, you will not get the upgrade until after midnight Monday.

CameraGuy,
My tkt is like $1920 I think it is Y fare, so I guess they will UG me seats aren't taken by Gold and Plat 2 day mark at Midnight right? at least this is what the Co's website said.

Al