Back in the PMCO days, pre-MM, when I was Platinum and Mrs. Zip was either Silver or Gold, she was often upgraded ahead of me (and this was 1-2 times per yr over a 4-5 yr stretch). I was always amused; she would have gotten the FC seat even if I was upgraded first, so I never complained.

The ongoing mystery of complimentary upgrades
 

Mrs. EX and I am returning from IST to LAX tomorrow. Both of us are 1K, I booked both of us on the same time on one itinerary, same fare class, same last name, everything exactly the same. Somehow UA split the itinerary in two on the day of departure at LAX. We are in paid Y on the way back and on our itineraries the little remark "complimentary premier upgrades requested" showed on the EWR-LAX leg. On Saturday morning Istanbul time, probably around the 96 hr mark, Mrs. EX was upgraded. Couldn't have happened to a nicer person. I was not upgraded and as of Monday morning Turkey time still have not. Flight status revealed that Mrs. EX was #1 on the list, two more pax got upgraded, 11 out of 16 booked. I am nowhere to be seen, probably won't happen until check in, not sure if OLCI is possible in Turkey. How in the world does this system work? I have my exit aisle seat, so I am not worried, would like to sit next to Mrs. EX, but this just makes no sense. Not the first time this has occurred. I am glad they always pick her first, but I really would like to understand the rhyme and reason for this IT behaviour.

It doesnt

LOL! ^

My guess - she kept the original locator when they split the PNR, you got the new one. In that case you got added to the running CPU list at the time of the split, whereas the Mrs retained her position on the list by virtue of the time of your original booking. So she's in first. IIRC, both of you even retain the status of the highest ranked person on the booking, although I am not 100% sure of this one.

Fact is, if they hadn't split the PNR neither of you might have gotten upgraded anyway - if they release seats to the CPU process on a one-by-one basis, your "booking for two" might have been passed over repeatedly in favor of the next person on the list who is waiting for single seat availability. I had two trips with BH after March 3rd and we did not get upgraded outbound until one of us did at the gate; return, with PNR split, we got the upgrades through CPU. It was a funny system, no doubt, and UA is very cagey about discussing the algos, so you piece together what you can of it, but it's a fixed algo for sure. On AA they won't upgrade your flying partner unless you have a Y/B ticket, so in any event I'd say it's advantage UA on this one, as arcane as the system is.

EDIT: Oh, BTW, the flight status "Upgraded" list is sorted alphabetically IIRC - BH's last name starts with A and was always first on the flights we took together on UA. Don't be reading too much into that.

Upgrades on second leg of a through flight not possible?
 

I was on a through (thru?) flight from LGA via IAH to SAN. Same flight number but with a stop in Houston. The pilots and crew continued on too. I asked whether I had to de-plane in Houston, but the flight attendants thought not, even though this was new to them. As many of you might have guessed, yes we all did need to de-plane, probably for security reasons. I could have guessed that too in hindsight since I was issued two boarding passes at LGA.

Anyway, I'm a 1K and was added to the upgrade list at LGA but it never cleared, so I flew in E+, booked in H class to IAH. When we got to Houston, I had an hour before the flight took off again. I looked at the mobile UA app and saw that only 9 of 12 F seats were booked. I also saw the upgrade list but my name wasn't on it. I went to the gate agents and asked why. They tried to help, but as former Continental agents, they were unfamiliar with the codes to upgrade a 1K at the gate. To their credit, one of the gate agents was on the phone with another UA employee trying to get me on the upgrade list. Unfortunately, time was running out and the other gate agent gave away the 3 seats before they could get me back on it.

I didn't care too much about the upgrade as it was less than a 3 hour flight. But when they finally did clear me to the F waitlist, I lost my nice E+ aisle seat. Also since they had me waiting at the gate, I boarded in group 6 and had no overhead storage for my luggage. The gate agents apologized but finally admitted that there didn't seem to be a way to get on the later upgrade list of a through flight if you weren't cleared at the initial departure city.

Moral of the story: look for different flight numbers for connecting flights to enable an upgrade possibility on the connecting flight.

I am 1k about to hit 150k miles in 2012, when I took a flight last week, I did not clear even though I used an upgrade. On the monitor, I was listed wy back, am I getting screwed on upgrades due to my last name starting with a W?

The monitor lists pax already upgraded (alphabetically by last name) and pax on the upgrade list, but not yet upgraded, by order of upgrade priority. So no, it really seems you had that many people ahead of you. I was way back as a 1K on a B fare in Jan, before the cutover, and had GS pax not upgrade on that particular flight, so yes, it can happen, it used to happen even before the systems merged. From time to time of course, not as a regular occurrence.

Algos might be arcane, but imagine the riot if people were getting upgraded by last name ... :D

[QUOTE=MarkedMan;19545778]My guess - she kept the original locator when they split the PNR, you got the new one. In that case you got added to the running CPU list at the time of the split, whereas the Mrs retained her position on the list by virtue of the time of your original booking. So she's in first. QUOTE]

You are absolutely correct, exactly what happened. Mrs. EX retained the original locator while I got assigned a new one. Doesn't make sense, but
at least it's an explanation. After OLCI I was first on the Upgrade Standby List, that has changed now to # 2 and meanwhile other pax have gotten upgraded. Might be moot anyway since our IST is delayed by a couple of hours as per UA e-mail, that would make the connection impossible. We'll see.

Sorry to hear about the delay, that won't be fun. The system doesn't seem to be equipped to track automatically the benefits of a joint reservation once auto-splitting kicks in, you just have two separate reservations, and your new locator just looks like a rez booked whenever the split's happened. Cue angst and unexpected consequences ... as documented in other threads like

Stupid PNR auto-splitting etc etc

and

Companion Upgrade Policy Change

You are not alone in your trials, not that it's any consolation.

Upgrade stand by priority
 

I did OLCI for a flight last week, when I was at the gate I asked how do you clear the upgrades (I am a Copa flyer taking advantage that I can use my premier status on unites) the girl says if you were not cleared at the time for your level then it's:

1. Premier status.
2. How many miles you have on your account

I asked her again what if I am silver on a k class who has 100,000 miles and the account and its also someone else just like me.

She said:

3. The system will check who checked in first.

Is is right?

I have never heard about that also an upgrade depends on how many miles have the flyer on the account. I have a lot of miles I don't know if that helped to get an upgrade on a united flight 23 hours before before departure (I have read that for silver upgrades clear at day of departure mos of the time at the gate if we are lucky)

Not supposed to be how it works but it's anyone's guess anymore. The published criteria are here:

1. Elite status
2. Fare class paid
3. Check in time (unverified AFAIK but there must be some tiebreaker and others here with more experience than me have reported this to be it)

http://www.united.com/web/en-US/cont...aspx#cpriority

I thought there WAS an airline that did this as a tiebreaker, but AFAIK UA is not one of them.

Actually, the exactly upgrade priority is like this:

Upgrade will be divided into 3 categories - instruments (GPUs/RPUs/Miles+co-pay), Full Fare and CPU (although Full Fare upgrade is a kind of CPUs)

So it will be ranked like this:

Instrument GS > Instruments 1K > Instruments PP > Instruments 1P > Instruments 2P > Instruments GM > Full Fare GS (YBM) > Full Fare 1K (YBM) > Full Fare PP (YB) > Full Fare 1P (YB) > Full Fare 2P (YB) > CPU GS > CPU 1K > CPU PP > CPU 1P > CPU 2P

And within each rank, they are ranked by 1) Fare Class; 2) Time of Purchase; 3) Time of Check-in.

So in your case, since you are at the bottom of the food chain, no offense, but it will be lucky that you can get a E+.

To 2P, upgrade is a luxury nowadays.

Not quite right (at least per UA) for CPU eligible routes (YBM are before instruments)
GS, then
1K's on YBM & Elites on YB, (by status, fare, time) then
Upgrade instruments (GPUs/RPUs/Miles+copay), (by status, fare, time) then
CPU (Status, Fare, time of request