Seat Assignment in "Elite Upgrade Notification"
 

Are seats assigned completely randomly to flyers CPUed? I indicated "Window Seat" preference, but often am often assigned an asile seat. And many times when several seats still available in the first two rows are available I was put in the last row. What is the rationale behind if there is any?

I don't know, but I'm almost always put in the bulkhead, even when other seats are available... :td:

I just jump right into the reservations web site and move to my "best available" seat as soon as I get the email notification.

In most cases I've found that I can go online or through the mobile app to chose my seat after receiving an upgrade. This is certainly the case for upgrades that happen before the 24 hour period. I haven't tried it for when I get upgraded at the gate, but often at that point you don't have a choice anyway.

I have myself convinced they fill empty seats front to back based on status and upgrade window. Is there any merit to this? Not sure..

No Upgrade Notification - I have a slightly different issue. I am no longer receiving upgrade notifications. It's not my settings I checked that. I spoke with customer service and was told that because I book my fligths thorugth a travel website (required by employer) the emails go to them instead of to me, and theres nothing that can be done about it. This is odd becasue I havent changed anything about how I purchase tichets, and used to get all notifications pre-merger. So it appears to be an issue created by the merger and no one wants to solve it so far. Has anyone else experienced this? Is there a way around it? Am I missing something obvious? Thanks

I initially thought so too, but as a matter of fact I (as a 1K) was assigned 5B while 1E, 2F, 3A, 3B and 4E are ALL available on the seat map.

they do it based on your saved preference for window versus aisle in your MP profile. beyond that i have not seen a lot of rhyme or reason to where i end up in the auto assignment. my last CPU i was autoassigned to 4B even though 1B was available (752 ac). i have also been autoassigned to rows 1 and 2 when 4 and 5 are open, so who knows.

I thought the same too, but IM in 5 when 2,3,4 are open

For me, it's usually the first available seat from the front of the same kind (aisle/window, maybe even the same side) as my original Y seat, excluding bulkhead. My profile says aisle, but I get window if I was in a window before the upgrade. I found this to be pretty clever (for UA IT anyway) but apparently YMMV?

Filling from front to back makes sense at least on meal flights, now that meal orders are taken from front. On 757s I might prefer back to deplane quickly.

CPU seat assignments
 

When I get the notification, sometimes there is a seat assigned, and sometimes there is not. I usually go online as soon as possible and select a seat.

You are correct in your thinking, if not booked directly with UA it usually goes to the third party that booked it. I have done one booking through a TA and they did get the sched change, however I had been on the UA web site a few days before and saw it, and approved the change. A few days later I got the change info. through the TA, just emailed the TA and told them I had taken care of it.