Yup. IME they can't "see" the one you've already reserved (that just expired), so they have to pull a 2nd one. I'm sure this is at the top of the list for them to fix real soon!

Question related to GPUs:

If I sponsor someone for an upgrade and no upgrade inventory is available when I sponsor that person, will they be eligible to get upgraded if RN availability shows up, or will that have to wait for R inventory? [My other question related to whether the upgrade would automatically happen, but certainly all of the postings here give me little confidence that an automatic upgrade will be applied -- very disheartening. Seems that you need to babysit UA on everything post 3-3 in order to make anything happen.

Thanks

I have a flight Monday Morning. I am still waiting for R space to open. Since its a 4/12 RPU ( and it was sponsored ) are you saing that if I dont clear before T- 24:01 Im out of luck. Sponsor does not have any more to provide me with and would want to use the 4/12 RPU on the LAST Day of the Month.

No, you're not out of luck. If it doesn't clear by 24:01, you will not have an opportunity to clear until the gate.

The risk is if R space opens between 0:30 and 24:00. Your existing RPU that you waitlisted cannot clear in that window due to the SHARES limitation. The only way to secure that space prior to the gate is to burn another RPU.

Hello UA-NYC,

I have a similar experience and I learned my lesson the hard way during my SFO-NRT trip on 4/10.

A week before 4/10, I called United 1K Desk and applied a GPU on this last minute trip. I was told that I was waitlisted, and I could see the waitlist instructions in red text on my United.com Reservations page.

Knowing that the waitlist expires 24-hours before take-off, on the day of travel, I exercised caution and asked both the agent at the check-in counter, and again an hour before take-off with the United Club agent about the upgrade clearing, I was told that I was #1 on the upgrade standby list, yet none of them could clear me just yet.

I thought it was the CO way of clearing upgrades on the new UA that they wanted to sell a few more upgrades for cash until the last minute...

I checked the United iPhone mobile app (see picture) and saw BusinessFirst had a capacity of 49, 36 pax have checked in out of the 37 bookings. I thought with the "latest, real-time app," 49-37 = 12 available, unsold seats.

This is when I decided to take my time making a brief visit to the Singapore Airlines lounge after having some cheese & crackers @ United Club... (yah, cheese & crackers... at least the coffee machine was working this time!)

I arrived at the boarding gate about 30 minutes before departure and was told that there was no BusinessFirst seat available.

I was surprised. I handed over my boarding pass, and asked the gate agent to double check (very nicely and politely). The agent was irritated by my action and typed away, and responded that I was not even on the upgrade list!

WHAT!? What just happened to me? This list does not have my name anywhere!



How come the real time mobile app does not have me on the upgrade list? What list was I on that both agents look at just hours before departure?

Thank you all for your posts. I now understand that I need to check R/RN space and call to ask for a manual clear into R space when it opens up. I will also watch my United.com Reservations page like a hawk...

What else can I do to avoid this in the future?

I was left in shock for a good few hours from SFO-NRT as you can imagine. I didn't think that United magically found 12 paying passengers in BusinessFirst within 2 hours of departure.

Is it really a gamble once we enter the 24-hour window without a confirmed upgrade now? In my case I didn't even have a chance to pull another GPU out for a seat...!

What could I have done differently?

Thanks,
Andrew

Just wanted to add another data base:

Applied one of my RPU about a month ago BOS-SFO-PHX, BOS-SFO got waitlisted , SFO-PHX cleared into first right a way^. Two weeks ago, R/RN>0 (2 to be exact), positive intend ^^, I let the system to do its thing, and the segment BOS-SFO was still waitlisted, and then R/RN went down to 0 until now. Just checked 5 mins ago, R/RN=6, called in, requested to redeposited my RPU, after that reapplied, and got cleared into first BOS-SFO, SFO-PHX right a way.

One thing left to do:wait for another two weeks to see if my first RPU deposit back to my "bank" or it's going to be another call.

FRA-IAD flight next week had been waitlisted with GPU for Y to C upgrade....checked the website today and noticed R2. Called and had to ask for the CSR to manually clear the upgrade.

So, United has a PSS system they chose because it would better help them monetize their offerings. Except that it can't carry over people on the waitlist at T-24, which prompts several phone calls by people on the wait list on hundreds of flights every day asking ...?

I sure hope they are making more money off the "upside" of Shares than they are losing it by paying OT to call center reps dealing with the increased call volume.

----------------------------

Major reason I have switched to AA, to avoid the upgrade lottery described above. Same thing happened to me on an IAD-LHR flight end of March, I happened to be at the airport in the morning for another reason and checked only to see i was no longer on the upgrade list! The airport check in agent put me on manually and I subsequently called GS to sort it out. Which they did, probably not having got the memo "let the computer sort it out"- this was end March. On the same itinerary as I was returning FRA-IAD they "lost my reservation" and there were several anxious moments as they looked for my rez.

I gave up at that point- there is too much uncertainty in business life for me to have to put up with human-caused travel uncertainty.

I just checked in for my flight. I was waitlisted with a RPU that did not clear. I checked in. Borarding Pass says "Added to Upgrade Standby List" Went to Mobile app and shows I am #1 on the list this is less than 24 hours now. Seems to me that its working as it should, no??

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B176 Safari/7534.48.3)

Yes. Thats good to hear

Keep checking for R space

Hi all,

Just curious, do the remaining F and A space automatically get converted into R when the gate agent starts to manually clear upgrades at boarding time?

In which case, I imagine the passengers who survive the T-24 hour upgrade list cut-over gets new boarding passes?

Andrew

I typically observe that F/J space is converted to R at t minus 2330 before the flight. So you can jump into R manually by calling 1k. If you wait for the airport list to process others have jumped you in the cue or TODs have been sold. Thus you can be 1 on the waitlist but it means nothing. Basically you're screwed unless you watch like a hawk.

Conveniently, 30 minutes after your waitlisting expires and your RPU is still removed from your account at the time. Isn't that just special?