kozykritter

Having just changed tickets recently on both CO and UA, I can confirm this is correct. The CO agent said that CO has done it this way the entire 16 years she has worked for them...which begs the question, which method will the merged company used? Let me guess

uxb

We didn't have anything like this at Continental. I had to abandon ship at CO when they announced the merger w/ UA. UA is like Chase Bank in that it sucks the life out of everything it touches.

twoaisleplane

I don't know what you are talking about. Continental collects the co-pay at the time of the request, even to go onto a waitlist, and then issues a refund if it doesn't clear. UA never did this.

It's on the current co.com website:

http://www.continental.com/web/en-US...rade/fees.aspx

Live4Upgrade

If this reduced the number of people who try to get an upgrade .... it's a great policy. Less competition.

The new UA policy is exactly what pmCO has had in place for years.

uxb

Never experienced this as CO Gold. *shrugs* Oh well. No loss for me since AA is my no. 1 carrier. I still think the policy is ridiculous and that the UA merger is rubbish.

kozykritter

I got it straight from the gate agent in Tokyo that international upgrades clear by elite status first, then fare class within status and then time of request (if needed to break a tie). The type of upgrade you are using does NOT matter (Miles, SWU, etc), according to her and the MP agent I called.

The gate agent also told me that the majority of upgrades that clear off the waitlist do so within the last 24 hours and most right before departure to allow time for walk up sales of premium seats. To me, this all means that if an upgrade would be waitlisted at the time of booking, you may not be harmed by waiting until much closer to your flight to add your name to the list and thus save yourself from being out of pocket big money for very long.

My waitlisted upgrade cleared after I was already seated on the plane, and I only learned of it when someone boarded with my exact same seat assignment. Still, was happy to have them take my $600 for business class NRT-ORD.

halls120

UA Insider isn't going to post bad news. To expect otherwise is pure folly.

Just another data point to support that this is COdbaUA. What is surprising is that no one has leaped to defend this usurious practice.

WineCountryUA

that is actually quite unusual to find a GA that correctly understands the policy -- even thought it has been long posted on the website. None the common -- how many miles you have flown this year or the price you paid which are common responses.

malgudi

Uh? Surely you jest (or worse, are completely ignorant and just making stuff up)

UA would charge the upgrade AFTER your flight took off.

Dr_Adventure

Totally agree - everything is making this seem like CO bought UA - I thought much more of UA would stay - going to make it harder and harder to stay with UA.

uxb

I'm only speaking from a CO POV cos I've never flown pm-UA.

UAPremExecflyer

This thread is rapidly going nowhere ... the usual PMCO better than PMUA and vice versa garbage rehashed.

sbm12

You can call and cancel without paying the $150 at that time but you do have to pay it when you have the new flight figured out. And you get the resdual value as an ETC so you can use it withn a year and for any customer. Unless you were never gong to fly again anyways it usually isn't a huge deal other than changing the timng of the spend a small amount.

As to the bankruptcy issue, you go to your CC company just like for the ticket value lost.

travelinmanS

I think the problem is that both airlines were better for consumers as stand alone entities rather than as this new combined behemoth. Most CO customers probably didn't fly much on UA and most UA customers didn't fly much on CO. Now that they have merged and have gained the resulting leverage over their customer bases, the new combined carrier has gone about the business of using their increased leverage over travelers to increase profitability.

The old CO customer sees shrinking benefits and blames the UA influence, the old UA customers see the same things but blame CO. In fact the new carrier is just doing what any intelligent business with increased pricing power over it's customers should do, try to make more money!

I never understood the people on FT who were cheering this merger when it was announced, mergers of large corporations are rarely if ever beneficial to the consumer, full stop. Airline customers, and especially FT'ers, seem to have an unnatural attachment to their preferred airline that is much different than they would have with say their mobile service provider. Thus the consternation when they feel their "loyalty" is no longer being rewarded. I'm sure that UA is using this attachment to their advantage and counting on the attachment to keep the customer making, in many cases, irrational buying decisions based upon this feeling of attachment to UA.

The ultimate power, however, does lie with the consumer who has the power to completely stop spending their money with the new UA. I'd imagine a statistically significant number of customers deserting the airline would garner more attention from corporate HQ than a few whinges on FT.

ErikStratton

In early Sept I booked a EWR-HKG flight on CO for travel the first week of November and requested a upgrade. They deducted the 60K miles immediately, and the $1200 co-pay posted as a charge on my credit card on Sept 7th.

Neither of the upgrages cleared.

My miles and co-pay had not been redeposited/credited post flight. So after a week I sent an email requesting a refund.
No response. So after a second week, I sent a second email.

Below is the response I received on Dec 19th.
--------------

Dear Mr. XXXXX:

Thank you for contacting United/Continental Airlines.

Please accept my apologies for the refund/redeposit delay. Your refund
request has been forwarded to our Customer Refund Services department
for processing. Please allow 7 to 10 business days for processing and 1
to 2 billing cycles for credit to your statement. Your OnePass Miles
have been deposited into your account.

We truly appreciate your business and look forward to seeing you on a
future United/Continental Airlines flight.

Regards,

L. Franklin
Customer Care Manager
---------------

My $1200 co-pay was finally credited to my credit card on Jan 9th 2012.

So CO had use of my money for just over FOUR MONTHS!