GUC and multiple segments question
 

Hi all,

I don't think I have seen this answered anywhere before, but I am in kind of a dilemma with my GUCS on a trip coming up very soon.

I am flying JFK-NRT-SIN and SIN-NRT-JFK in the near future. And while I was told that I would be able to use a single GUC to upgrade all of the legs in a given direction. I was told something a bit different when I called the Diamond desk just now. There are availability on some of the segments, but not all as of right this minute. So when I called in to confirm upgrades on the ones where there IS availability, I was told that if I go ahead and do that, I would have to pull a SECOND GUC to stay on the waitlist for the uncleared segment if I cleared at the gate or at another time between now and departure. Is this true? Or is it a HUACA situation?

Thanks!!

Hang up, call again.

Edit: missed part of your post. You need one GUC for each direction. If one segment in one direction clears, you do not need another GUC to remain on the wait list for the second segment.

I swear I thought I posted this because I am also doing JFK - NRT - SIN - NRT - JFK and also using GUC's in the very near future (Feb to be exacxt).

What I can tell you is this...You need one GUC for the outbound regardless of the amount of stops and one GUC for the inbound regardless of the amount of stops. I also called and asked a similar question; if for example, NRT - SIN had OP open up but not JFK - NRT, would I be cleared for the NRT-SIN and still waitlisted for the JFK-NRT? I was told that yes but knowing how many times the DM agents mess this up, I am not sure what to believe at this point other then you def need two GUC's.

HUH?!?!? :confused:

1 GUC is supposed to be for or each one-way direction.

Has anyone had any luck with this using DLAssist?

Sorry, I misstated, I was planning to use 2 GUCs on the trip, one for outbound, one for inbound. By entire trip, I meant JFK-NRT-SIN all the way in one direction, and another GUC for SIN-NRT-JFK. What I was told was that if I went ahead and cleared myself on the segments that had the inventory, I would have to use another GUC in a given direction if the other upgrade cleared later.

This is wrong. It's one GUC per direction regardless of when the upgrades clear, assuming that you don't have a broken fare.

it depends on how the agent applied them. The way mine are applied, if one of the two segments opens up on the inbound then that segment will get upgraded. When/If the other segment opens then that will get upgraded as well; and all on the same guc. I would call the DM line to see how they were applied.

Thank you, this makes more sense. I had misstated what I meant initially because I am in such a hurry to get this resolved. I was referring to one GUC for all legs outbound, and one GUC for all legs returning.

You should double check that you don't have a broken fare on your ticket.

Double Post

To echo what people have said:

1) It's the entire one way direction.
2) You can choose to, say, apply it to a single sector so that, in your case you could have it apply to JFK-NRT only so that if that failed to clear you wouldn't waste an entire GUC on just NRT to SIN.
3) I've had GRU-ATL-SEA clear on GRU-ATL but waitlist on ATL-SEA and then had ATL-SEA clear separately.
4) I've currently got a GUC applied to just LAX-SYD on a SEA-LAX-SYD ticket so that either I keep the GUC or I get to sleep on the way to SYD. (I'm assuming SEA-LAX will upgrade, if not, then I can cope on a short flight).

The thing I'm not sure is if say, JFK-NRT clears then can you call up ask that NRT-SIN is applied against the GUC as well.

1) As I said earlier, it's not the entire direction if there's a broken fare. It depends on the fare component. Also, at least for SWUs, you could een have a stopover and use a single GUC per direction if the fare allows stopovers versus being constructed with three one way fares.

Yes you can waitist only the most significant segment and when it clears add the other segments, still using a single GUC for the entire direction.

Thanks guys. The second agent I spoke with seemed to be a little better trained. I am upgraded on the two segments that had inventory as of yesterday and waitlisted for the others. None of the agents mentioned anything about a broken fare, but I didn't ask either. All seems to be in order as of right now.

how soon are your flights? Mine are middle of Feb and non of the segments have cleared yet. Did they notify you by e mail of the upgraded segments?

My back to back JFK-SIN trips start tomorrow. They told me that the process was automated and it would go through automatically, but I called them as soon as I saw that upgrade inventory was available in the GDS for two of the segments. I'm still checking hoping that I can catch it when other inventory opens for the other two segments. One of them only has 2 J seats even available for sale, so I expect that one to go to the gate if it even clears at all.

see, that's what I am afraid of. OP inventory has become non existent. They are totally holding onto every single last seat in hopes of selling them at regular J prices. Being at the top of the heap doesn't mean a thing anymore.

When facing a situation in which a domestic leg has not cleared on an international itinerary, how can one tell whether the domestic segment has been properly coded for the upgrade? It used to say something like "SYSTEMWIDE UPGRADE REQUESTED". Now with the change to manage upgrades, I don't know. Is it the case that if 2 seat maps are displayed for the flight, this is coded correctly?

Also, the poster above (CAETrvlr) mentioned upgrade inventory in the GDS. I had assumed after the Expert Flyer this was much harder to come by, does someone have a handy thread to look at (three letter searches never work)?

No, the website doesn't tell you that you have an upgrade requested anymore. Kind of a pain.

Inventory is still available through a GDS if you have a subscription or a travel agent friend willing to look things up for you. DL simply prohibited ExpertFlyer from publishing the data it retrieved from a GDS... but the GDS still has the data.

I've had a GUC waitlisted on only one segment on a leg; when it cleared, I had the same GUC waitlisted on the other segment. (If it didn't clear for the long segment, I wasn't going to waste a GUC on a short domestic segment I was likely to clear anyway.)

This. 8 seats cleared 5 minutes before boarding on my last LAX-SYD. They held onto 8 seats!! I was #1 on the list but still didn't get a seat choice.

If you saw that you were #1 on the list for 8 seats, why didn't you tell the GA the seat you preferred?

What, and risk being heard asking for this by a fellow FlyerTalker and outed in our DYKWIA thread?!?!?

I think not!

;)

I went to speak with her and asked her nicely if the upgrades had processed yet, and she told me curtly to take a seat and wait. So I didn't bother asking for any favors.

The time before when I did specifically tell a GA my preferred seat assignment (at SYD) I was told 'The computer does all that'

So I don't see the point anymore...

To follow up on all of this, in case anyone is interested, through a combination of checking the GDS, messaging Delta Assist when I saw inventory, and taking what I could get at the gate for the rest, out of 10 segments this week, I will have flown one in coach and the rest in Delta One. I was able to confirm a couple of days early an upper deck seat NRT-DTW, which I leave on in a little over an hour.

I was never below #1 on the upgrade list for UGs that went to the gate, which is a good thing, because a couple of them only had one J seat available by the time upgrades were cleared.

Ironically, the only leg that I flew in coach was a 7 am JFK-SEA before connecting on to NRT. I would bet that I was either a victim of FCM on that one or that there were IRROPS the day before that filled up the first class cabin on that flight. I was number one on the waitlist for 0 seats. :)

Anyway, I appreciate all of the input. My comment on any survey that I get will be that I hope that DL will provide the same training for Diamond phone agents that they provide for the @DeltaAssist twitter team. HUACA is a PITA, but I always got great answers in short order from the twitter team.