I recently made reservations through my travel agent for myself, my wife, and my child. I then accessed the travel reservation details (throught the "View/Change Reservations" link) on nwa.com so I could select seats. I typed in the NWA confirmation number and my last name, only to find that my wife (who has a different last name) was missing. When I went back and typed in the same NWA confirmation number and her last name, I got the travel reservations details page with just her information showing. In the past, we've all always shown up together on the same page. I wonder if something has changed recently...

In any case, my question is, since we are all Silver Elites (and so have some chance of being auto upgraded), will we be treated as a group of three, or as two and one? Is there any other reason to be concerned about this "split" reservation?

If you have the same conf #, you should be in the same record.

If being upgraded together is essential, you are all set. If 1 or 2 out 3 is OK, you should consider asking them to split the record; otherwise, none of you will be upgraded in EUA unless 3 seats are available.

First, different last names doesnt eqaul split reservations automatically. My wife travels under her unmarried name and we are are always on the same record. We are both Gold and prefer to either both be upgraded or neither. Now, funny thing is they have called only one of us a couple of times saying it was the last seat so at the airport maybe things get split up no matter what.

I would say if you want the best chance to upgrade leave it split. It will be much more difficult to upgrade 3 especially as a silver. This way you may get one at least confirmed before the flight and then have a chance for a battlefield on the others.

The only thing of concern is that you may get split up on your seating with the seperate records.

I don't believe the reservation will be split. If it were, it would have different confirmation numbers. However, I would split the reservation for now. That way you will have a better chance of someone getting upgraded (unless you all definately want to sit together).

A question sort of along the same lines. With two silver elites on the same reservation and two available seats in first, will they upgrade us even if the seats are not together (i.e., to 2A and 4B)?

Definately YES, I often get upgraded with a "companion" and we often don't get seated together.

hey. thanks for the quick reply!

Thanks for the replies. I think I'll take the advice presented by splitting up the record into one (myself) and two (wife and child). Better chance of upgrade, and should be able to keep the child with an adult. And if we don't get upgraded, it shouldn't be so bad as I've been able to snag bulkhead seats on all the flights.

Not a big point, but if your wife/child have seating preferences (aisle or window with the middle seat), MAKE SURE you are assigned the "non-wanted" seat before you get upgraded...if you get upgraded they will NOT be able to move seats (within the elite section anyway).

His original post said that all 3 were SE's.

An elite can call his resv. line & request better seating for non-elite covtravelers, too, and the request will usually be granted. They don't have to be sitting together.

Update: Well, I split the PNR for my party of three into 2 (wife and daughter) and 1 (myself). I get the new confirmation number. The wife and daughter stay under the old PNR. Even as Golds, conventional wisdom tells us that this should improve the chances of someone getting EUA'd. On the leg over, the wife and daughter get EUA'd. I sit back in economy. OK, I figure it was a crowded flight and they probably had just two open seats in First left when our turn to upgrade rolled around.

Time for the two return legs, and I check on the upgrades. Both wife and daughter are again EUA'd and I'm still in economy. Again? A call to the NW Gold elite line, and I find out that splitting the PNR has evidently caused the EUA computer in some glitchy way (I was concurrently assigned multiple entries/information of both the old and new PNRs) to continually skip me. It appears that there were enough open seats for all three of us to get EUA'd, but now they've gone to the Silvers. All gone.

No sour grapes here. Splitting the PNR was the right choice, and I would do it again. The moral of the story is that we probably shouldn't depend on the system taking care of itself. I don't know if the agent who gave me the PNR failed to remove all the old information, or it was purely a computer glitch. (They are looking into it.) I realize now that I should have confirmed that everything was in order with a different agent after I had the PNR split, and then checked on the status of our upgrades previous to the 24 hour check-in. Lesson learned.

Anyway, can't really complain about getting 2/3 of the upgrades. Of course I'll let the wife and daughter enjoy First. I've still got my bulkhead aisle seat.