inthecloud

A positive MUA experience to add to the thread: I booked a business trip from SEA-LHR via concur in PS two weeks ago. After thinking I might bite the bullet and pay the FCM for the outbound, I resorted to some MUA research when the upgrade offer for D1 was $3600 each way.

After some planning I had identified a few TATL segments that had Z availability and figured I’d call to see if any had OY. The first agent I got immediately quoted me the FCM offer and when I clarified I was looking for an upgrade into OY for somewhere in the range of 40k miles, she put me on hold and the call disconnected 45 min later. I called again and the hold time 35 minutes, so I tried chat. The chat agent promptly told me they had checked all TATL flights on my travel date and there was no availability (this took them about 60 seconds so consider me skeptical).

My third attempt I was also placed on hold but the agent came back and confirmed there was no space to LHR from any hub, or on any other TATL out of SEA. He offered to put me on the waitlist, and I was skeptical but figured I had nothing to lose. (He also told me my MUA would go to the gate, which I was pretty sure was false and have since confirmed is not the case).

Today I logged in and saw GUC space available on my flight, so flipped over to my itinerary and sure enough my class of service is now marked as D1. Selected a seat and we’re good to go!

The MUA is alive and well!

kyushuman

Once I reminded the agent who told me that MUAs don’t exist that we were flying on a B fare, she remembered what they were! You make a good point— we found nicely priced one way HND-ATL-MSP-FAR tickets in B class, so they should be upgradable but August 11 is a huge holiday in Japan and every single flight is sold out in Y, so not optimistic! I’ll update with any good news.

xliioper

Ah, B fares should be a modest mileage amount since they are in the higher tier of Main fares (YBM) for MUAs.

michab

I may not be a particularly frequent flier, but from what I’ve been reading and seeing that for most uses SkyMiles are around 1¢/mile equivalent, it seems surprising to me that MUAs are a thing at the rates they are - $450 for an upgrade (PS->D1) seems like really great value.

Duke787

Called today to find out if a couple of upcoming flights had MUA availability. Was told they don't release this information anymore until you have a confirmation number and booked flight

Which of course would defeat the whole purpose -- don't feel like going through that whole rigamarole. Will try again tomorrow and see if I have better luck, if not I'll just book elsewhere

MCO Flyer

Thats not true just a uninformed agent. MUA pull from OY inventory which is easily searchable (maybe the amount of miles required aren’t viewable without a confirmed reservation). If you are a PM or higher, OY inventory can be found online for D1 if the website says Global Upgrade Certificate space is available.

Duke787

Yeah I'll call back again. It looks like for the day in question there is GUC space available via JFK or CDG but not via ATL.

Maybe I'll just book and then call back in and cancel

xliioper

Global Upgrade Certs only require revenue Z inventory these days for upgrades (at least from PS). Not sure if the indicator is just showing based on Z (like RUCs) or OY. I checked a number of DTW-CDG flights and it always showing Upgrade Available to D1 when there was Z open, and to PS when there was only I or higher inventory. Unless OY highly correlates with Z, I suspect website is just showing D1 as available when there is Z open.

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One more data point - snagged a cheap G fare BOS-MSP-ICN and called in to check for MUA availability, agent knew straightaway what I was trying to do but unfortunately there was no OY space available (despite flight being Z4) so was waitlisted instead. (Waitlist also appears to have been applied correctly based on how the booking now looks.) Entire process took ~5 minutes and was surprisingly painless, but I guess I got lucky with an experienced agent

michab

How does the booking look? In the app and on PNR.sh there’s absolutely no indication that anything’s going on with my booking, the only thing is that if I try to search for change options I get a message that it can’t be changed online because (among a couple other bullet points) I may have requested an upgrade which requires a certificate/miles. Every time I’ve called in, though, I’ve been told that they do see the waitlist.

truncated

Ah you need to check on the website (and hopefully you get the old manage trips screen and not the new one) - the flight should show the upgrade is waitlisted and there's a duplicate segment when you look at the seat map:

michab

Aha! I do indeed see exactly those two things (and when exiting back out of the seat map I ended up on the mobile-responsive view - presumably that’s what you mean by the new one). Good to know that things are as they should be, though I was fairly confident it was there since pretty much every time I’ve called in to check the status I’ve been told “ah, yeah, I see that here”. Though a couple times I was told that it was cleared/confirmed when it wasn’t, presumably by reps not familiar with MUAs, so I’m curious what it looks like on the backend that would cause multiple people to make the same mistake.

Looks like the seatmap is holding steady at 7 seats open, so here’s hoping it goes through and I get to do something useful with those old miles. Back when I accrued them it’s possible I could’ve had enough for a ticket, but I suspect that ship has sailed. Still, even with the baseline being a ~$2k PS round-trip, the equivalent of $450 for business seems like a great deal. I just hope if it clears it happens with an even window still open, and with enough time to not jeopardize my KSML request.

CarmenOM

I have flights booked MSP-ATL-MAN and return AMS-MSP with the outbound next week in Premium on VS and return in mid-September in Premium Comfort on KLM, both G fares. I’ve been calling periodically (about four times since I booked) to check on MUA availability, to no avail until today. Today I reached an agent who acknowledged that she didn’t know anything about MUAs but looked up the information when I told her about it and then said that she would check availability. After a few minutes on hold she returned to say that there was availability on the VS flight (the one that matters most, of course, since it’s overnight) for 25K SkyMiles but not at this time on the KL flight. I was expecting to pay 45K for the upgrade and will reserve my jubilation at that price until the miles are pulled from my account. But my jubilation at the upgrade is justified as my reservation changed immediately to show me in Upper Class on VS and I was able to select my seat. I also received an email from DL confirming the change.

Kudos to the agent, who listened to me, did her homework immediately, and secured the MUA.

xliioper

Pretty sure MUAs on VS metal book into G (VS award class) and Z on KL metal (KL revenue bucket). You should be able to check availability yourself without calling an agent. Searching for award in Upper Class on VS website will show if there is G open and searching for revenue flights on KL website will show if there is Z open or not. Although if flight is too close-in, there may be KL Z open with no Z seats for sale due to advance purchase requirements on Z fares. This is where having an ExpertFlyer account comes in handy. The downside with VS upgrades is that you won't get mileage credit for the flight due to VS G being an award class and will have to submit a mileage request after the fact.

CarmenOM

I remember that VS mileage credit problem from several years ago. I had hoped they’d fixed it by now.