Upgrade on MAD-IAD for 20K without co-pay from M class. Glitch or norm?
 

I was viewing reservation online for SEA-IAD-MAD and looked at upgrade options.

Outbound in T class was offered for 20K miles + $550 co-pay, as expected.

Return in M was showing 20K and no co-pay (displayed as "Waved"). After thinking for about 1 second, I selected upgrade the return and it confirmed instantly in R class for both segments MAD-IAD, IAD-SEA. Ticket already re-issued and it shows upgraded class, original ticket price and 20K for the upgrade - no mention of co-pay. I also saved upgrade confirmation page that showed co-pay as "waved".

Is it normal to see upgrades without co-pay once in a while or it's more likely a glitch (maybe because of Air Lingus operated flight MAD-IAD)?

Glitch... enjoy!

Y/B fares have no copay but M should have been $300 for USA-Europe (and the 20K miles for but Y).

Did they spell "waived" wrong?

Lucky! I only ever get the bad glitches.

AntonS - Thank You for bringing this to our attention. We hope you have liked this change (for as long as you had it).

If you go into your account, please note that 10,000 of your miles have been redeposited and the other 10,000 have been used for the redeposit fee. We are only too glad to help out loyal United customers like yourself by being able to redeposit those miles.

Enjoy your trip, we look forward to serving you again.

CSR

Couldn't help it. Have fun with the upgrade!

Saga continues. Another free upgrade?
 

Saga continues....

Decided to upgrade outbound, which showed 1 seat available for 16K miles and $440 co-pay (with current promo 20% discount). After entering credit card information and clicking on Purchase and got famous ERROR - CALL UNITED RESERVATIONS. I call and agent manually re-issues the ticket, all upgrades confirmed. So far so good.

A few hours later I received email from United, saying that due to technical error my ticket was not issued correctly and need to call Reservations to confirm upgrade. I check receipt and sure enough I do not see any entry about co-pay or extra mile deduction for the outbound. Miles not deducted from the account and credit card not charged. Could not believe this is happening AGAIN on the same reservation.

This time I decided to call back, because website clearly indicated correct charge and I was going to pay it and I did not need any problems with the ticket. Agent looks at the reservation says everything is fine, but transfers me to .com support after I insist that there was an issue with mile/co-pay deduction. Another agent at .com looks at reservation and confirms that there are no problems!!! Just amazing. At this point I do not insist and hang up.

Should I really call back again and INSIST on collecting co-pay/miles or just wait until check-in?

Wait til checkin. There is absolutely no risk in doing so.

+1 LOVE THE HUMOR HERE! It does hit close to home though. I still don't have all my bonus miles replaced for the "Map Your Dreams" promotion. Received 25k, lost 25k, received 10k, wrote MP with ticket and confirmation numbers, MP wrote back saying that I had to call MP to resolve. So, that's my next step. Ouch.

+1 Agreed