Upgrade international Y-C SURPRISE priority
May 28, 2012, 1:09 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Programs: UA-1k, 1mm, Marriott-LT Platinum, Hertz-Presidents Circle
Posts: 6,355
Upgrade international Y-C SURPRISE priority
Bah-Iad
no R availability
It is J9,C9,D9,Z0
A friend is getting the cash upgrade offer of $1128 or 35k miles and 600 bucks.
How is this possible? She confirmed the upgrade with miles and copay with me still on the waitlist with a SWU!
For the return
Iad-bah
no R
J9, C9, D9, Z9
She didn't have enough miles but did the cash upgrade for 1088.
I am on her outbound but not return so I don't know about those on waitlist.
I guess I'm not surprised about the return clearing with the cash upgrade offer but the miles/copay clearing acting like a PCU (premium cabin upsell) and confirming instantly is surprising. She is a premier member and shot right past this 1k.
no R availability
It is J9,C9,D9,Z0
A friend is getting the cash upgrade offer of $1128 or 35k miles and 600 bucks.
How is this possible? She confirmed the upgrade with miles and copay with me still on the waitlist with a SWU!
For the return
Iad-bah
no R
J9, C9, D9, Z9
She didn't have enough miles but did the cash upgrade for 1088.
I am on her outbound but not return so I don't know about those on waitlist.
I guess I'm not surprised about the return clearing with the cash upgrade offer but the miles/copay clearing acting like a PCU (premium cabin upsell) and confirming instantly is surprising. She is a premier member and shot right past this 1k.
May 28, 2012, 5:58 am
#4
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Washington, DC
Programs: United Premier 1K 1MM; AA Plat Pro; Hyatt Globalist; Marriott Platinum; Avis President's Club
Posts: 2,529
Bah-Iad
no R availability
It is J9,C9,D9,Z0
A friend is getting the cash upgrade offer of $1128 or 35k miles and 600 bucks.
How is this possible? She confirmed the upgrade with miles and copay with me still on the waitlist with a SWU!
For the return
Iad-bah
no R
J9, C9, D9, Z9
She didn't have enough miles but did the cash upgrade for 1088.
I am on her outbound but not return so I don't know about those on waitlist.
I guess I'm not surprised about the return clearing with the cash upgrade offer but the miles/copay clearing acting like a PCU (premium cabin upsell) and confirming instantly is surprising. She is a premier member and shot right past this 1k.
no R availability
It is J9,C9,D9,Z0
A friend is getting the cash upgrade offer of $1128 or 35k miles and 600 bucks.
How is this possible? She confirmed the upgrade with miles and copay with me still on the waitlist with a SWU!
For the return
Iad-bah
no R
J9, C9, D9, Z9
She didn't have enough miles but did the cash upgrade for 1088.
I am on her outbound but not return so I don't know about those on waitlist.
I guess I'm not surprised about the return clearing with the cash upgrade offer but the miles/copay clearing acting like a PCU (premium cabin upsell) and confirming instantly is surprising. She is a premier member and shot right past this 1k.
May 28, 2012, 6:05 am
#5
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: LHR (sometimes CLE, SFO, BOS, LAX, SEA)
Programs: UA 1K
Posts: 5,893
Crazy idea: married-segment availability. Have you booked flight UA981, "direct" from BAH-IAD, which is actually UA981 BAH-KWI plus UA981 KWI-IAD?
If KWI-IAD were R9 and BAH-KWI were R0, under many circumstances you might see R0 online, and under many circumstances a waitlisted upgrade on the KWI-IAD direct flight might not clear. I can imagine circumstances where availability opens up on just the longhaul segment KWI-IAD and united.com is smart enough to let you buy-up on just that segment individually.
If KWI-IAD were R9 and BAH-KWI were R0, under many circumstances you might see R0 online, and under many circumstances a waitlisted upgrade on the KWI-IAD direct flight might not clear. I can imagine circumstances where availability opens up on just the longhaul segment KWI-IAD and united.com is smart enough to let you buy-up on just that segment individually.
May 28, 2012, 6:45 am
#7
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Programs: UA-1k, 1mm, Marriott-LT Platinum, Hertz-Presidents Circle
Posts: 6,355
This whole situation is just odd. She shouldn't clear with miles and co-pay if there is no R availabilty or your SWU should have cleared first. I'd PM UAInsider for good measure as this seems to be a clear example of the upgrade system being royally messed up. It won't fix the solution but at least you'll be giving UA more datapoints. This is deeply disappointing...
Crazy idea: married-segment availability. Have you booked flight UA981, "direct" from BAH-IAD, which is actually UA981 BAH-KWI plus UA981 KWI-IAD?
If KWI-IAD were R9 and BAH-KWI were R0, under many circumstances you might see R0 online, and under many circumstances a waitlisted upgrade on the KWI-IAD direct flight might not clear. I can imagine circumstances where availability opens up on just the longhaul segment KWI-IAD and united.com is smart enough to let you buy-up on just that segment individually.
If KWI-IAD were R9 and BAH-KWI were R0, under many circumstances you might see R0 online, and under many circumstances a waitlisted upgrade on the KWI-IAD direct flight might not clear. I can imagine circumstances where availability opens up on just the longhaul segment KWI-IAD and united.com is smart enough to let you buy-up on just that segment individually.
May 28, 2012, 6:58 am
#8
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: PSM
Posts: 69,232
While it could mask things in the web page search it shouldn't for the system actually processing the upgrades. Those should still be handled segment-by-segment.
May 28, 2012, 12:35 pm
#9
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Washington, DC
Programs: United Premier 1K 1MM; AA Plat Pro; Hyatt Globalist; Marriott Platinum; Avis President's Club
Posts: 2,529
+1. The more I think about it just if it is a married segment issue shouldn't allow someone with "miles and co-pay" at a lower elite level to clear before an SWU at a higher elite level.
May 28, 2012, 1:08 pm
#10
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: PDX
Posts: 2,284
Info/Experiment on Intl Upgrade Priority Miles vs GPU
May 28, 2012, 1:53 pm
#12
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Silicon wasteland
Programs: UA 1KMM
Posts: 1,381
Correct, they both come out of the same bucket! How am i waitlisted and she cleared?
Woah you may have a point here.......I need to check this. There is a possiblity that she only used miles/copay for the Bah-Iad leg as her onward flight was a one cabin RJ........This could be a possibility if my iad-ord flight is the one that is holding up me clearning I need to call and see this asap.......wouldn't that suck........ Usually i only sponsor the over water leg but in this case I was sponsored by another person who I believe has the entire leg sponsored. Great suggestion, it could be my domestic leg that held this up and masked the R availablity (if there was any) for the Bah-Iad.
Woah you may have a point here.......I need to check this. There is a possiblity that she only used miles/copay for the Bah-Iad leg as her onward flight was a one cabin RJ........This could be a possibility if my iad-ord flight is the one that is holding up me clearning I need to call and see this asap.......wouldn't that suck........ Usually i only sponsor the over water leg but in this case I was sponsored by another person who I believe has the entire leg sponsored. Great suggestion, it could be my domestic leg that held this up and masked the R availablity (if there was any) for the Bah-Iad.
Who knows, you may get your UG if (and only if!) you do this....
May 28, 2012, 2:30 pm
#14
Join Date: Jun 2007
Programs: UA, AA, LH, Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, Hertz
Posts: 1,759
Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry 9000 (Bold): Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9900; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0.0.576 Mobile Safari/534.11+)
Other than the KWI-BAH tag on the OP's flights, and the cash/miles+cash offer, is there anything materially different from how GPUs were/should have been handled in terms of priority vs. the experience using miles vs. a GPU in the thread linked below?
Info/Experiment on Intl Upgrade Priority Miles vs GPU
I don't thinks there is any difference b/w the 2. Looks like another case of cash (any amount of cash) trumping GPU regardless of the status, be it pax or sponsor status. We will probably hear another fairytale about glitches but I learned not to trust them anymore.
Originally Posted by AeroWesty
Info/Experiment on Intl Upgrade Priority Miles vs GPU
May 28, 2012, 2:46 pm
#15
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: PSM
Posts: 69,232
It is possible that the search showed R0 if the OP was looking at a connection and the extra segment didn't have the R inventory. And there is a slim possibility that UA had R0 on KWI-BAH and not BAH-IAD. Otherwise it seems like something is amiss.