Ticket Sync Issue
 

Had an interesting interaction with the CO PPlat line tonight. I'm doing a ORD-SFO-ORD run tomorrow for a quick meeting in the morning and then back on the CO operated evening flight. The UA metal portion cleared at the 100 hour mark, which caused the ticket to go out of sync. As reported on here a call can sometimes cleared this up. I had the PPlat number stored in my phone from where there was a system glitch that showed various 1K's as PPlats.

The agent was very helpful and told me that it would have to be re-synced at the airport, which I was fine with. When I asked if I was still on the upgrade list, she mentioned that she could put me into F right away. However, when I gave her my OP (since MP is in the res) number, she noted that I was only Plat/1K and not a GS. Said she could only confirm PPlat and GS into F at the moment.

Traveling on a T fare in coach, and I thought RN was the upgrade category. Are they creating another fare bucket for GS CPU's?

Perhaps this was the agent's way of saying you called the wrong elite desk.

CO system is different from United's. They confirm upgrades only on systems swaps (at certain times).

PP line agents have the discretion to confirm PP and GS within the upgrade window (I believe when R/RN>0 among other things) without having to wait for a system swap.

That would make a lot of sense. Good to know for the future if that's how it works!

This "out-of-sync" issue is a huge pain, as you miss out on upgrades on CO-metal once a UA-metal upgrade clears. I sure hope this issue goes away on March 4 when the system changes.

Just to reiterate, because this may be important for non-PPlat business travelers who make last-minute ticket purchases: if you see that a CO flight is R1, and you buy a seat, you may end up stuck in coach.

This is different from UA where if you saw that a flight was NF1, and you bought a seat, you could be confirmed right away (if already within your upgrade window).

CO does offer products which guarantee certainty about confirming into first class at time of booking. Those are Y/B/M fares (Y with last-seat availability for elites, and B/M with a special fare bucket availability for elites).

How can you tell whether your ticket is out of sync? I think this happened on one of my recent itineraries where I was completely skipped for any of the advance EUA sweeps for CO flights.

The easiest way is to look at your reservation on the CO website. It shows an error of the type: a modification has been made to your itinerary, please call reservations for reissue.

Another typical error, you're unable to check in online. Even if connecting UA to CO, UA agent can't check you in.

Yesterday, the UA agent at CLT had to go exit out of the UA system and log into the CO system just to print out IAD-PVD. CLT-IAD was fine, although when I went to use the kiosk, the message that displayed was,

CO re-sync = lose UA CR1/SWU Upgrade
 

So true.

I had a UA.com booked trip all on UA metal.
First segment was changed to a "CO operated" flight, thereby requiring me to check in via co.com.

UA.com directed me to co.com for check in.
CO.com (using the CO confirm) said, "no valid record".

Called CO tech support...took the rep 35 minutes to tell me that I had to check in at the airport (with an agent) because if she re-synced my record it would drop the UA upgrades (CR1s) that had cleared.

I have three more UA.com booked trips coming up between now and March 9, all with a the first segment recently changed to a CO RJ. Looks like airport check in for me. :mad:

IMHO, the SHARES conversion on March 3 is going to be an absolute disaster.

That happened a few weeks ago on my way to SNA via ORD and IAH where I had cleared the upgrades on CO, but not on UA. When I asked why, the agent said that CO elites will be cleared after all other UA elites (even though I was using my MP number in the original reservation). Fast forward to the ticket counter at PVD where it took about 20 minutes of having the CO agent try to figure out how to print out the ORD-IAH and IAH-SNA boarding passes.

You're right in the fact that March 3rd is going to be a disaster--it's a good thing I'll be traveling on the 2nd :D .

I've refunded two mixed-metal itineraries with UA after I had this same out of sync issue on my last LAX>JFK>EWR>PHX>LAX RT. When My CR-1 cleared on the p.s. flight it tossed everything else out of whack and wouldn't let me into F on the EWR>PHX flight while lower status elites were clearing. Tried to resolve it when I landed at JFK but even the incredibly helpful women in the RCC couldn't do anything for me. I ended up being offered a $99 buy-up to F at the 24 hour check-in window -- which I took.

This was booked on united.com and used my MP#. The CO system forces the CO number to dominate however. This caused an issue checking in at LAX for my p.s. flight because it was looking for a regional to support the upgrade but my CO# was attached to the reservation (again, I never entered my CO #, their reservation system did this post me booking the ticket). Again, when I checked in for my UX flight PHX>LAX I realize that my CO number was attached to that leg as well. Just annoying when it causes these systems issues. Especially when it forces the CO # on to all of my legs when 2/3rds of the legs are on UA metal meaning that the MP# would help avoid problems on a great number of flights within the itinerary. What a cluster...

Another way to tell: if you're on a mixed metal itin and a UA upgrade clears, then that will always put you're ticket out of sync.

I've been really lucky and haven't had the sync issues with my mixed tickets this year. I went into my CO account and put in my mixed itineraries with the CO confirm code. I noticed that now you can also save that itinerary in your CO acct and view it there even if you bought from UA. This allowed me to manage all my flights on CO segments too and the 24 hour upgrade list. This might help...

I've had the PPlat desk confirm me in F when there was no R or RN. Each time the new booking code turned to PN, which IIRC is the same bucket that Y/B/M-Plat book into when you get the immediate upgrade to F.

I was shocked on one of the flights they gave me the last F seat; I know that when GS force upgrades thru they WILL NOT give the last (few) seats away when forcing the upgrades. The PPlat agent told me that this will continue post March 3rd for GS, if that is the case, another thing that I like that Jeff is doing. I don't often buy Y fares but when I do this is a nice bonus....