kdhith

Looking back through the thread, I had guessed it was you. She *was* spectacular. Absolutely.

paule123

I educated another CSR on this today. Called the elite line to change my XN to X, and explained the issue to her (she hadn't heard of it). She happily changed it and said she would notify the "help desk" about the issue.

BTW, time on hold less than 30 seconds, and completed the entire transaction in less than 5 minutes. ^

ETA: Upgrade processed at T-24. Seat 1A. ^

donnyb

+1

Just got off the phone (over 1 hour) with elite desk who was unable to change XN to X "because there is no X available at this time".

As far as YN, she suggested I monitor saverpass F award availability on the rez since its the same miles as YN so they could just change the booking code.

kyte

Can anyone comment on if this issue has been fixed by CO yet? CSR and his supervisor assure me that XN qualifies for EUA and that neither of them have heard of this problem, and if the problem existed/has been reported it is likely fixed by now.

zigenbock

Wow, you were lucky to find a CSR and a supervisor that have even heard of these upgrades!!! Most of the employees give the standard response that reward flights are not eligible for upgrade.
From the comments here, I don't believe that the problem is fixed, but haven't used a reward ticket myself in the past two weeks.

kyte

So, at the recurrent theme/YMMV advice to call different CSRs I called again tonight. The CSR this time said that XN is for elites and that it wouldn't make any sense for the scenario we've experienced to occur (as if anything travel-related ever makes sense).

Anyhow, she spoke with her supervisor who apparently has a memo that says they are aware of this XN vs X "rumor" floating around the net and that it is completely untrue and that I shouldn't believe what I read on discussion boards.

Henwurst

I was on an award ticket over thanksgiving, including the following legs:

KIX-GUM X
GUM-ROR X
ROR-GUM XN
GUM-NGO XN

Nothing cleared in advance and a lot of persuading had to be done to get on the list at every single airport (of course everyone insisted that award tickets were not eligible for upgrades), but there was no mention of the XN being an issue. In the end I was upgraded on all flights.

zigenbock

Too much coincidence for this to not be true. I have used 8 one-way rewards in the past 3 months. 6 of them were in "X" and upgrade came through a couple of days before the flights. The other 2 were in "XN" and did not clear and I did not show up on the upgrade list, and could not convince the people at the airport that I should be on it (or the elite desk supervisor - they said it was only for Presidential Platinum card holders).
I agree with you that it absolutely makes no sense - XN is for elites and X is not.....
And as for the 'supervisor' that said you shouldn't believe what you read on message boards - you also CANNOT believe what all the supervisors are telling you!!!

mnmme

After 7 calls got the XN changed to X, but because it was inside T-120 it wouldn't add me to the upgrade list.

So far Ticketing and GA at airport refuse to add me. Heading for United club to try!

jimmyz1

Its amazing this remains a problem after so long

kyte

That's because it's not a real problem - just some fictional nonsense spawned from FT chatter as far as CO is concerned.

Wx4caster

I just this morning managed to get a swap from XN to X about 30 minutes before the 5-day window opened up. It was a lot of effort , compounded by the fact that I had a married segment and X was only available on the first part of it. First agent adamantly refused to break up the married segment (said it couldn't be done), then argued with me over my non-elite wife's ability to get an upgrade on an award ticket. So, she wouldn't even try to change the ticket to see what happened. I made a second call, initially to change the return flight, and while I was at it, I asked if she could reprice the first leg as a X, and just a few minutes later it was done, and a few minutes after that, upgraded. I would give it a ^, but still too much of a pain in the a$$

Unfortunately, the second part of the previously married segment is still in XN, and even if it opened up in X, I'd be way too afraid to call in and get it changed too. With my luck I'd get some agent who says my wife wasn't supposed to be in first and would move her back. I've learned when dealing with CO, you "gotta know when to hold'em, know when to fold'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run"

channa

Ain't that the truth...

amartin1979

The real question is why CO has refused to fix this problem. Especially since this is a known bug. Paging UA Insider.

channa

With all the hiccups and glitches we see with CO's technology on a regular basis, they clearly don't have a handle on it. Plus they're trying to juggle having to manage distributed systems since they wrote so much outside the core.

I couldn't even begin to imagine what their fix list looks like. Even if this is on it, who knows where it falls on the list. Someone just posted yesterday about a bug he ran into that I first ran into more than two (2) years ago.

I'm not looking forward to dealing with the CO kludge of technology when they sunset UA's systems.