fumje

My solution: book family members in forward cabin on award tickets.

lincolnjkc

What is your status? As a 1K my 3x70lb bags has never left me wanting more even when my wife is on a separate res (just check all of the bags under my PNR)... Pretty sure that benefit applies to Plat and maybe Gold as well.... So unless you need a *lot* of luggage or really want something checked under her name for some reason....

For priority boarding whether my spouse or coworker "[s]he is with me" on approaching the gate agent has never been turned away.

Priority security is the only benefit I can't think of a work around for -- but if spouse has PRE or CLEAR (or PRE CLEAR) probably moot anyway.

pigzilla

Same as above, wife and kids just come with for priority check-in and priority boarding. And I use my 3 checked bag allowance for the fam. The only item you would need to call in for is to assign them complimentary E+ seating, tell the agent that they are your companions.

howie411

Only Silver Member unfortunately so I only get 1 bag if I'm not taking advantage of my credit card perks..

DELee

Well, have your wife apply for one of the Chase UA credit cards so she can get the benefits that bestow to credit card holders.

David

bryanwallace

questions:
. as 1k used my miles for son on UA int flight..understand that as not same PNR then he cannot sit in E+... reading here it seems if i was on same flight even on diff PNR then would be poss?
is that correct? actually have a different son who is 1k (gifted status) on a revenue tkt in e+ on same flight.could he bump the son on the award tkt without status to E+ ??
thanks

jsloan

Yes, a 1K traveler on the same flight may call the Premier line to ask for an off-PNR companion to move to E+ for no charge. (It gets a little tricky if the caller is in PE or J, but if the caller is in E+ and trying to sit together, it’s a common request easily granted). The source of the 1K status — gifted or not — is not relevant to the request.

pseudoswede

Do I have to call?

Ran into a co-worker who went fully remote and moved to another state. We were on the same flight back to DEN, and I asked the gate agent to move her into E+ as my companion. The gate agent looked at me as if I had three heads and said that is not a benefit. After further pushing, she said she'd do it, but I (me, not the gate agent) would probably get in trouble with United for this.

lincolnjkc

Where were you flying from? If it's a smaller station (e.g. staffed by UGE / Unifi / Etc. for ATW agents) this is one of those obscure corners of the airline that they are almost certainly not trained on, those agents don't have the lived experience to know about it, and there isn't automation to support it, so I'm not surprised and calling could have been the shortest distance between two points.

OTOH if this was a station staffed by mainline UA agents I'd be concerned -- I've had this "fixed" for me at the ticket counter, club, gate -- even a couple times at the Baggage Service office (long story...)

(When I first skimmed your post I thought you said from DEN and based on who/what I know about that airport and CS management I would have been borderline shocked to hear that -- UGE outstation on the other hand... nah, not surprised)

pseudoswede

Thanks. This was at SDF, which I believe is an out-sourced outstation. Seems kind of silly to call when a gate agent is standing 10 feet from me.

lincolnjkc

I don't disagree... but a lot of the outsourced stations as soon as you deviate from the 95% script they can be at best hopeless and at worst dangerous.

E.g. for one UA controllable delay at a UGE station that was going to force a misconnect (the one and only FA for our CRJ-550 no call/no showed, solution was to steal an FA from the next inbound...), the UGE agent insisted that even on paid F they could only do Y on AA because "AA doesn't permit it and United can't book it". I did an in-person HUCA -- thanked her, told her not to touch the reservation, walked away "to think about the options" and called reservations. Guess what I got rebooked into without having to be overly annoying?

bryanwallace

promise this is my final question!!! can the 1k traveler also ask for pff PNR companion whos in BE to be moved to E+ for no charge??
thanks!

cfischer

of course you can ask . But it won’t be granted . Try at the gate … they might do it.

bryanwallace

understood -thanks-so the only way to be guaranteed getting moved up to Eplus as a 1kcompanion on separate PNR is to buy standard economy tkt-makes sense//thanks

fbcooper

So i switched my flight to a flight with a friend and his family so we have different pnrs. I am silver so i get to choose economy plus at check in. Via chat i tried to get them upgraded but agent wouldn't do it.

Called the premier hotline and they did it no questions asked other than their pnr and confirmation of their name and birthday for security reasons. Was really surprised they upgraded all 3 to e+