atk5015

A co-worker of mine was successful with this just last week. I had told him about using GPU for LH just 1 day before he flew to Istanbul. After speaking to the Premier Line, they could not FedEx the paper certs to his home address in just the one day before he flew out, but instead they would FedEx the paper certs to his address on file, even if it happened to be to the Hilton in Istanbul (he was there for about a week). He changed his address in his MP profile for the moment and the agent issued the paper certs to be FedEx-ed over to the Hilton. He had success using them after connecting through FRA.

exbayern

Thanks. Interesting about the address on his MP profile being the contact address. I reviewed my address several times with the agent, and the address where the certs were received is definitely not the one in my profile.

Hopefully that was just a one time event. It sounds like he received them overnight? I was told that due to the address being in Europe they would take 10-14 days, even after I pointed out that in past they didn't take that long. That may be their standard caution however.

atk5015

FedEx took about 4-6 days over to Istanbul.

cooltraveler

Hi folks - Just curious, does the expiration/valid thru date on the LH paper certificate coincide with the original electronic UA cert? I see through this thread if you redeposit the paper certs they will reappear in your account with the original expiration date, so I would assume the printed paper certificate would show the same validity period? It'd be great if the paper certificates expired one year from the date they were printed...

exbayern

Perfect! Thanks again for all the information.

German Expat

They expire the date your electronic certificate would expire. So my current one for a planned flight in August shows 12/31/2012.

cooltraveler

Thanks German Expat!

lhiltz

As I am going to have a spare GPU/SWU for this year (and they seem to be worthless to trade) I am thinking of gifting it to a friend who is flying in from Europe on LH. Obviously it will be easier to use it on the return trip, when I can potentially be at the airport the them to sign it over. But then I got to thinking....
1) Can I do this and when I ask for it to become a paper GPU, do I have to specify the travellers name and FF#
2) Do I have to be present at the airport for them to use the certificate
3) This is a student, who has a booking class of K (which according to all I can find looks to be a valid class)

is there anything else I am not thinking of?

NiceLanding

The coupon itself is transferable, so there's nothing special you'll need to do. I was actually surprised to find that they're not more restrictive, but it's nice when you realize you can't use one yourself and want to just give it away immediately.

lhiltz

and does anyone know the priority on paper GPU upgrades?

nieder2

I too am interested in whether i can get on the grading list at CDG. ANyone?

SFO_71

I tried to use paper certs twice last year in a similar situation. First leg of trip was CDG - FRA, 2nd leg was to FRA to US and I wanted to use the converted SWU on the trans-Atlantic flight.

On the first trip, I went to the airport the day before travel and a very nice LH agent just confirmed me directly in Biz class. It was brilliant, since it was my first experience in C on a A380.

One the second trip, I tried the same thing. No dice. Not only did I not get confirmed in C, the LH agent would not even put me on the grading list. By the time I arrived at FRA the next day, the agents there said there were too many people on the grading list and would not put me on it.

It's dangerous to draw conclusions from two data points, but I'd say (1) it's possible but that (2) it depends on the personality of the agent.

oliver2002

Again, you have to pick your agent. LH employees have more authorisations and can put you on the grading list for other flights than that particular airport. Contract employees cannot do anything outside of that particular station.

CASAFlyer

K class does not allow upgrades: see
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...wupgrades.aspx

Some older certificates (printed in 2011) do not exclude it, but I expect that the LH agents will not honor the certificate (look at earlier posts around end of 2011 for extensive discussions).

If it were for your personal use, you could try to make a case that the certificate should be honored based on the printed T&C (and still probably fail), but personally I would not hand the paper SWU to a third party under these conditions.

lhiltz

Thanks CASAflyer, looks like I will keep my GPU and use it domestically unless miracles happen and we are able to extend them into 2013...not counting on this one, though!