R / PZ Avail changes depending on how you search flights
 

I've been wait listed for using GPU to fly SIN-NRT-SEA 23 MAR. Looks bleak (which surprised me, never NEVER had trouble on NRT-SEA). Decided to check other routings. Looked at SIN-NRT-SFO-SEA. No R or RN space. Then:

Dropped SIN-NRT, and just searched NRT-SFO-SEA. All of a sudden moves to R/RN 5 for both NRT-SFO, and SFO-SEA. Shows on both UA.com and EF. Again, as posted in previous thread, Fare class availability is exactly the same for the NRT-SFO, and the SFO-SEA flights. Looks at each flight individually, and the NRT-SFO flight is sold out in business! The SFO-SEA is F8 and R/RN5.

Can anyone explain why? I'm so confused. There really can't be R5 on the NRT-SFO if it is sold-out. Again, why are the fare classes all the same across all the fights? It seems as if the NRT-SFO is only showing R5 b/c the SFO-SEA flight it Will a GPU not clear if ALL flights wait listed for the one GPU don't show at least R1?

DL or AA keep looking better and better

That's the way it seems to be now. Class inventory is the same across connecting flights (whether upgrade or regular inventory).

When I search for R with connecting flights, I have to search every segment or I will get fooled by the crappy website.

Another CO SHARE feature you'll like. :eek::eek:

Great advise ^

I stumbled across the same issue myself. If for example, you select one routing of the outbound portion of your itinerary as AAA-BBB-CCC-DDD and availability is as follows:

AAA-BBB RN9
BBB-CCC RN9
CCC-DDD RN0

The reservation detail reports back that RN space is 0 for each of the segments. (The lowest available RN space for any one of the individual segments.)
BTW.....ExpertFlyer reports back the same misinformation that the UA website reports. You still need to do an individual segment search on EF.


You need to search each segment individually to determine the actual available space. Once booked, upgrade space can be reserved and booked for each segment where RN>0

Instead of finding out why the system did not work the way it was, why don't you give a ping to UA to see whether they can clear NRT-SEA immediately, which is the most important and precious way to upgrade with the GPU?

I am on the line to the calling center to try to make the international reservation with the travel voucher. It's really a painful waiting process.

Hey, think of it this way. You get to "play" with SHARE while your "favorite" airline saves $$$ (so that you don't have to worry about it going under along with your "enhanced" elite benefits). Win-win for everyone!:D

LAX

So has anyone found a workaround to make searching for upgrade space sanely doable? I have a trip to Europe to plan where I wanted to find a TATL flight with R>0. Trouble is that the start and finish cities are second tier so there will likely be connects at both sides which means that I can use a number of US hubs and a number of Europe hubs. If I understand this correctly, I have to search every possible hub pair, for every date I am willing to fly on, to insure that I am not seeing 0 simply because the domestic connection to the US hub is a R=0. That is not a quick or easy process unless someone knows some trick. Sheesh!

This is different than what every reply in the thread is talking about so call me confused.

I get all the responses in the thread that say you have to check individually, otherwise, if one segment is r0, then all segments show r0.

however, in this case you say NRT-SFO is r0 but NRT-SFO-SEA is r5
Now that doesn't make any sort of sense at all???????

That would imply if you book the whole thing through you can upgrade, but if you just book nrt-sfo you cannot???

So if you search R for BOS-SIN, you have to remember all possible gateway routings:

ORD/SFO/LAX/SEA/EWR/IAH-NRT/HKG-SIN

and check R availability.

Not to mention you have to enter W,V,Q,M,B,Y to search for SWU fare. :td::td:

SHARES may be OK for a regional carrier, but can't handle a global carrier business.

Penguinmoon, what happens on ua.com when you search and click the radio button (at the very bottom of the page) for upgradeable flights (use miles to upgrade, or similar)? It should take you to a page that asks you to click the segments that you want to upgrade.

Then, on the results page you will see in red font, that certain flights cannot be upgraded or an upgrade is not available. For others, you won't see any red ink. That way, you can learn which ones have upgrade space available. And, the different routes will be displayed, so you can choose which connecting city you prefer.

It doesn't stop you from having to click on Fare Class for each segment once displayed, to make sure that the proper fare for a GPU or miles is available though.

I hope that helps and that I didn't miss your point entirely. :D

so if i'm reading this right, let's say i have the AAA-BBB-CCC-DDD itinerary. if i create EF alerts for AAA-BBB, one for BBB-CCC and one for CCC-DDD all individually and any one of them is showing R>0, each time i should be able to call in and confirm an upgrade for that particular leg?

sounding like to me that the trick is to look for each one separately, right? almost as if on a multi-segment flight searching all at once seems to give the lowest common denominator, in this case R=0.

It must have been a glitch. What was even more strange, the NRT-SFO was C1 but still showing the R5 because of the tag on SFO-SEA. I called UA. The agent said she saw the same thing, thinking it very odd as well. I asked her to check and see how much it would be do change my flights, she (A very nice PMCO agent), couldn't tell me the price b/c of my upgrades that cleared on the return? So, she had to call the rates desk, but we were disconnected after about 10 minutes, and I never followed through.

Checked shortly after the call, and it was showing R0 again.

Here's some evidence of this craziness. Same flight (UA 116), different R/RN availability. I've been on hold for 1 hour with the 1K line and they can't figure it out. On their end, they don't see any R/RN availability! Craziness.

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/3...0320at130s.png

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I ran into this a few days ago while booking LHR-IAD-SFO. LHR-IAD was R~4, while IAD-SFO was R=0. Even though the website reported R=0 for the entire LHR-IAD-SFO trip, I went ahead and booked. As expected, the SWU for LHR-IAD cleared immediately, while IAD-SFO was waitlisted.

Therefore, even though the website is making this all annoyingly difficult, your SWU will clear based on availability of the individual segments. Now, if only the CPU system made any sense...