Mileage Waitlist Question
 

I have a flight from EWR-PDX on Sunday. I am waitlisted for a mileage upgrade on the flight, and the seats are down to just 5-6. I am a new to these mileage upgrades, (I usually just roll the dice on the comp upgrades.) Do I have a chance? :confused:

When I did a search it seemed that people were pretty dismissive of the mileage upgrades, and some even suggested that I would lose my EUA shot? Someone also said that CO will take your miles, not give you an upgrade, and will not return the miles?? That makes no sense to me.

I am thinking I had better focus on my happy place for that 6.25 hour flight, but anyone have any advice? Is their anything I can actively do to improve my chances? (IE drop the waitlist? keep the waitlist and show up early to the airport? Stand on my head and spin around three times?...........

Thanks for any advice.. lol I would do almost anything to sit in leather for that flight.. :D

"Stand on my head and spin around three times?..........."

Sounds like as good a plan as any, the waitlist is a joke.

"I would do almost anything to sit in leather for that flight.. :D "

Is there a multi-segment Jungle Jet itinerary available for that route?

*paging snake*EWR-PDX flights have been good to me in the past -- but that's really not saying much. If you're a Plat then I'd remove myself from the WL at the 5/6 day EUA mark as CO has never (to the best of my knowledge) confirmed a mileage upgrade for myself within the EUA window. However, others may hold different opinions. As always, checking in early can help as well as your fare class too (the higher the better).

If you do stay on the WL, and fail to clear, be sure to keep a copy of your BP as OP will likely want proof you really did find that "happy-place" in Y.

Yet, as I mentioned before, don't give up on CO for that route. You're flying in on a business travel day (Sunday) so CO probably anticipates selling a few of the seats for revenue. In my PDX transcon past I've often cleared the list at the gate, so keep a smile on your face and your fingers crossed. Who knows, maybe they'll rotate in a 738 mid lav and suddenly you'll have 4 more FC seats that need assigning!

Not yet. IAH-PDX is 1,825 miles and EWR-PDX is 2,433 -- well beyond the range of the ERJs! :D ^

But, say, CLE-PDX via an EMB... hmmmm... that may not be so bad...

Waitlisting DOES work. I had me & Mrs. D/2 waitlisted to BDL for next week. I cleared last Thursday night and she cleared yesterday.

Back in July we cleared at the gate.

The only penalty (which is fair) is if you voluntarily unwaitlist yourself and request to put the miles back. Then you'll pay a redeposit fee.

I've only done it once, but my wife and I had a flight with two long segments each way early this year, so I called and they were able to upgrade me immediately on two of the segments, but told me we would be waitlisted for the other two, but that they would keep our miles even if the waitlist was not productive. I watched the outbound flight and first seemed to be full, so I had given up, but the day before the flight two seats became available. I was elated, but when we got to the gate we had not been upgraded. After some shameless begging of the GA, we took our tourist seats, when she came on the plane and gave us an upgrade. We were subsequently upgraded via waitlist on the other segment of the return flight, so we sat in front on all four legs.

I subsequently found that the waitlist apparently is expunged when they hit the window where EUA kicks in, and we were just lucky that we had a very kind GA, and didn't piss her off. The suggestion I received on this forum was, if inventory appears after the EUA window starts, call immediately and see if they will do something for you.

LOL... I guess I should be more careful. That would be like a bad episode of I dream of Genie. "Genie I want all leather for these flights".. "yes master" Then the day of flight.. IAH-EWR on an RJ...NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! :eek:

Back to the subject of mileage upgrades. I called the elite line and for what it is worth they suggested that a mileage upgrade would come before a comp upgrade up to the 72 mark. They also said that I would need to call to have it redeposited at no cost once the waitlist failed. This sounds in line with what most have said. I guess I will just let it ride and see what happens. I will update the thread with the results. Thanks for the info.

One word of warning: Call to redeposit as soon as you know it won't can't clear. Otherwise, you a) won't be included in EUA and b) can't do OLCI.

1. Are you sure of this? (not that I doubt you, but I have heard like eight things now)

2. Since my waitlisted segment is the second half of my ticket, will this affect the first half of the tickets OLCI as well? :confused:

Wow if this is the case I guess the mileage waitlist really is lame.

Unless things have changed recently, this is from personal experience. Others have posted similar stories. You should have no problem with OLCI on any segment without a waitlist. According to CO, a series o waitlist (mileage upgrade) is void at the 24 hour mark if it hasn't cleared. The lame part is that EUA has a problem running against a segment with a waitlist - similar to OLCI, I guess. Then again, there shouldn't be any upgrade inventory at the 24 hour mark if you haven't cleared (but there could be timing issues). I also don't really understand what happens at the 5 and 3 day windows (plat and gold) if there are pending mileage upgrade waitlists. If I were plat, I'd wonder whether to cancel at the 5 day mark.

I am questioning this also. I have an upcoming "waitlisted" for an LAX-EWR flight. Should I cancel it before the 3-day window for Gold EUA? Is there no way that the mileage ug would clear after EUA window's start, or would it make sense that those waitlisted would clear before any Plats, Golds, etc?

dan

I honestly have not cleared a mileage upgrade waitlist in years. I don't know anything of bumping you off the list at the EUA window, but I know that when I have been waitlisted (a) it is impossible to check in at the kiosk (unless something has changed lately), and (b) have been told by agents that checking in forces them to kill the upgrade request. I know of no other airline that has a similar rule. I think it's just poor system design.

Mileage waitlist do come in occasionally. Flying from FLL the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, I was told ahead of time that I had a good chance of an EUA, so mileage waitlisted my wife. Well, of course, she ended up in F while I sat in Y. That said, much of it depends on the route. I've had no luck at the transcon routes like EWR-SFO, EWR-SJC, EWR-LAX. In each case where I've been waitlisted and not gotten the upgrade I've 1) had to call CO to get the miles redeposited after the flight and 2) had to call the elite desk to get un-waitlisted in order to do OLCI. (The elite desk person has sometimes told me that I shouldn't need to do that but if I basically act like an idiot with an idea fixed in my head, they eventually do it and then the OLCI that failed before the call works, as if by magic.)

Being as I'm only a few miles from EWR, I'm pretty much stuck with CO unless I want to make lots of connections. That said, I've been pretty happy with their service except for their computing systems. They should be able to redeposit miles automatically, allow OLCI while still on the waitlist, determine whether the upgrade would have happened via EUA and, if so, redeposit the mileage, and notify me of major flight delays early enough that I could have sat on the beach at NAS for a couple more hours instead of spending them in rainy FLL when there were major delays at EWR. (I can dream, can't I?)

Right you are, mbreuer! Although there is no charge to return your miles if you do not get the WaitList upgrade, you must telephone OnePass to get the miles redeposited into your account. And if you don't get the WL upgrade, you will be locked out from the EUA which starts roughly 72 hours before the flight (when the Platinum EUAs commence). It is wise to call to cancel the WL request and have your miles redeposited (all in one call) about 5 days out. Then hope for the EUA or Battlefield Upgrade. (Can we use "BFU" as an abbrev. for the latter?)

Incidentally, you can call for the free mileage redeposit after the flight, as well, if you didn't already do so.

My information is based on stuff culled from many OP Elite Line conversations with CSRs and from many prior FlyerTalk posts and from personal experience --- which makes this post 92.7% statistically correct (LOL).

EWR-PDX u/g rate
 

I'm in the same boat as you for this coming Saturday, Derrico. EWR-PDX on a 753 - No u/g seats available and 6 revenue with a very full flight. Folks, what do you think the odds are of a Gold u/g on this transcon?

Let us know how it goes for you tomorrow. Good luck!