Did not receive upgrade on my outbound CLE-EWR flight for today (10 AUG 2008; flight 624; Plat on H fare) and my name did not appear on the upgrade list after I checked in (at about 22 hour mark). So, I called the Elite Desk and was told that I was indeed on the list. I begged to differ, since I was looking at the PDA site. I was transferred to a supervisor who confirmed that I should have been on the list and took care of it for me. Instantaneously, my name appeared on the list. ^

Now, I just took a look at my return flight on the PDA site (12 AUG 2008; flight 825 EWR-CLE). Here is what appears as I am writing this:

First Class Upgrade Information
Continental Flight 825
New York/Newark, NJ (EWR - Liberty) to
Cleveland, OH (CLE)
Tue., Aug 12, 2008 at 5:50 PM
Boeing 737-500

Capacity: 8
Booked: 1
Checked In: 0

This information will change frequently.
This page was last refreshed Sun., Aug 10, 2008 3:31 PM New York/Newark, NJ (EWR - Liberty) local time

Upgrade Standby List*:
No customers currently standing by

* This list only includes upgrade-eligible customers that have checked in for this flight

Please note that no one has yet been upgraded.

This looks to me like there are seven seats available, yet no one has been upgraded. I called the Elite desk a few moments ago and was told that all eight F seats on the 737-500s are now being held for sale, by CO policy, until the day of, so no one is getting upgraded until check-in at the earliest.

Does this sound right?

Cheers and God bless!!

Someone else on this board with an EUA problem noted a CO supervisor stating that EUA's will now happen <24 hrs in advance. I sure hope this is inaccurate.

No one is checked in on the return flight yet which is why no one is on the list yet.

As for CO choosing to hold all 8 seats for sale, that is their prerogative, particularly if they think that they can sell the seats or that they'll need them for handling misconnects. I would be surprised if they were choosing to do it wholesale across the plane type, but they could still do it.

Also, the fact that it took intervention to get you on the list the first time might mean that there is something wrong with your reservation causing it to get passed over, but that seems unlikely since the chances that there are NO elites on the flight other than you are pretty low, so it would appear that they are holding back the inventory.

If they are, it's a very recent change. I've had 5 day upgrades on the 735 in the last two weeks. The last one was for a flight less than 10 days ago.

Agreed. I had a 5-day EUA 3 weeks ago on a 735, too. I cannot imagine that CO would do this as it makes no sense. That's not to say that they can't or won't do it, but I doubt that they have or will.

I had a 5-day EUA on a 735 EWR-TPA for Monday 8/11 (EUA'd on Weds). They even zeroed out the inventory on that flight with two EUA's.

So CO is playing with inventory as they see fit for each individual flight to maximize revenue.

-RM

Yep, which is nothing new.

And we all know that sometimes phone agents will say all kinds of things that may or may not be exactly true.

Agreed. I was attempting to show that there were no EUAs yet (the category is not even there).

My guess, despite what I was told, is that it is probably a decision for this particular flight and not a fleet-wide decision.

I should have clarified that the person I spoke with identified herself as a supervisor.

Just to recap, I had one supervisor tell me that there were EUA problems this weekend (on my initial call) and another tell me that 735 F inventory is now being held back until the day of.

Thanks, everyone!

I was EUAed 5 days out on fri for 1 of my wed flights. Co is prob picking and choosing which flts to hold inventory in hopes of making more sales in the last 5 or so days.

I flew SFO-EWR on Wednesday (8/6) and EWR-SFO yesterday (8/10). In both cases, I was upgraded (shocking!), but it happened at gate. On the first flight there were 12 seats available and no upgrades until just before departure, so this seems to be how they're doing things, at least on some flights. Not fun!

Yet on my 89 Wed (both segments), there are 4 occupied F seats out of 16, and nobody has been upgraded--no mileage, no EUA.... I have a mileage upgrade for it and I haven't cleared the BF segment, yet there are only 31/50 seats sold/upgraded so far...

EUA came through just prior to the three hour limit. Looks like they waited until the last minute to upgrade three of us and held one seat until they were ready to close the flight.

I am really angry tonight and I am hoping someone can give some advice. Every week I fly PHL-IAH-DAL and receive a EUA 90% of the time. As with most people I check in 24 hours in advance and they check to see where I am on pda.continental.com. I checked in for my flight tomorrow and my name was not showing up on the upgrade standby list for PHL-IAH. Usually I would not be made but this was an H class fare I bought today for $1,000 but no seats are available for assignment.

I called the regular CO number first and I got a gentlemen that told me I was on the list but he couldn't tell me why it didn�t show up on pda.

I called back a second time and asked the same question to which an agent told me she couldn�t see the upgrade information but would pass me to someone who could help. She transferred me to a line that had all prompts in Spanish.

I called the elite desk and explained the issue. The agent didn't know about pda.com and I walked her through it. She said I was not on the upgrade list because I am not showing checked in. I told her I have my ticket printed off but she said to check in again and it will work.

I checked in again printed another ticket but I am still not showing up on pda. I know the site is working because I see people checking in and the list growing. Any suggestions? It doesnt seem any of the agents know what the heck they are doing. Should it be that hard to add me to the FC upgrade list?

I had a flight a few weeks ago where they couldn't find a way to add me to the list either. I don't think it would have cleared anyway but that's not the point. The web support desk said to check with a checkin agent, the checkin agent said to check with the GA, the first GA tapped away for a moment and said I was on it. Checked on PDA site, not listed, went back to a different GA who spent 5 minutes trying and gave up. Never got a good reason for why it wasn't possible.