I've noticed that too recently on a waitlisted award.. when I called to have myself cleared the agent says there is a process that runs daily that would have cleared the waitlist..but I called in before that happened. I didn't necessarily believe her, but she may be right. Still, it leaves the inventory sitting available for someone else to snatch up in the mean time. This makes EF all the more valuable.

What a load of BS, REGARDLESS of whether it's true.

I have yet to have a waitlisted segment--be it for an upgrade or a change of routing or of class of service on an award--clear on its own. I've had to call and get every single one cleared.


I call BS on the agent. I've let at least one segment sit > 24 hours waiting on this magical "sweep" or "process" to happen and still had to call in.

I recently had two different segments waitlisted for I. Both cleared about 2 days out and they even sent emails to tell me. So it does work sometimes.

Dear Experts,

I am not sure this thread is exactly reflecting my concern but it is the closest one I found in order to not open a new thread.

I recalled in the past few years, I used to be able to waitlist UA flights on a record that contains UA+*A flights, e.g. waitlist a more direct route or better timing. Today, I called in to waitlist BKK-NRT-IAH in I (I already have a confirmed BKK-NRT-LAX-IAH in O). The agent told me I can't waitlist because my ticket has TG flights on it on the outbound.

Is this a new rule or this has been in place prior to the merger (both UA and CO??)? The supervisor told me that the reason waitlist is not allowed on *A ticket is because once the waitlist on UA is cleared, it will cancel the other *A flights. It almost sounds to me this is obviously SHARES bug but whether this has been the case pre-3/3, I do not know, but it is so post 3/3.

Thanks,
Kiam

Agent was wrong. HUACA.

I finally got an official response from MP agent, she confirmed that the phone agent and the supervisor were completely wrong and waitlisting on UA flights is allowed even though an itinerary contains non-UA flights. Although I am happy about this, it does irritate me when phone agents/supervisors decided to come up with their own rules like this.

My next question to MP was whether we are allowed to waitlist lower award class, for example, have a confirmed ON (saver first) but want to waitlist IN (saver biz). I actually have a live booking having exactly this done (confirmed ON but waitlist IN), but the same MP agent told me in that same email that waitlist for lower class is not allowed even though both are saver type. I argued back and said the website only states waitlisting for saver while it never says anything about prohibiting waitlisting IN or XN while having a confirmed ON or IN, respectively. No response yet from MP.

Can someone please confirm if the MP agent is correct on this policy?

By the way, what does HUACA mean? Searched the glossary, it is not on there.

Hang Up and Call Again.

The agent is incorrect. You can most definitely waitlist for a lower cabin of service. I've done it several times post-3/3, even going so far as to confirm one segment in XN (to get the routing I wanted) when booked in ON, then waitlist for IN on that same segment--all done on a saver F award.

I did have one agent claim that if the last remaining ON segment cleared into IN, I wouldn't get back the extra miles I'd paid for saver first... but when it did so and I called in to confirm it, I indeed was refunded the 10k difference in miles, too.

Trust me, I had to HUACA 3 times before posting. :( the last attempt I would not trust the agent and was on hold for 15 min to talk to the supervisor who told me I couldn't waitlist.

When the process is working it triggers as the inventory is released, not on a schedule.

Which, of course, is usually on the same day that Xmas and Easter occur simultaneously.

Dave

You can set your watch to when these auto upgrades will occur, and actually they happen twice a year, without fail!

Spring---
Specifically the process is triggered on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox unless the full moon is on the equinox in which case it is after the following full moon.

Winter---
When the elves get around to sending them on 12/24 of each year, with the big guy, and not before!

For our 8/16 flight LHR-SFO, my husband and son were automatically upgraded from BF to GF when O inventory was released two days out. I received an email. Still needed to call in to have the ticket reissued, because I could not check them in.

Shortly after T-24, more O inventory opened up, but I had to call in to snag it for myself. After the T-24 mark, the wait list is disabled.

I've had it work correctly a number of times. I've also had a few where it wasn't.