Fitstylist5

My recent “return to flying” CPU experiences:

5/5, all clearing at 24 hours out as Platinum.

8/8 ORD-LAX
8/10 LAX-ORD
8/19 ORD-EWR
8/24 EWR-ORD
8/29 ORD-ABQ

Also paid $699 at check in to upgrade from Premium Plus to Polaris EWR-MUN on 8/19. 12 passengers in Polaris.

Nomos

I just boarded a flight, was number 1 on the upgrade list, showing 10/12 on the app. Gate agent said that seats were blocked, but the app still offered a $149 fee upgrade, and going through the booking process still showed seats for sale (P2 PZ2).

Is it standard now to block seats for CPUs while keeping them unblocked for paid upgrades/bookings?

BThumme

As a platinum with my +1:

DTW-ORD cleared shortly after t-72
ORD-DCA - did not clear (although there is only 6 seats on the E170).
IAD-EWR on a 320, cleared at T-72. This was a bit interesting, about 8 names showed up on the ug list as upgraded but we went out with only 7/12 seats - 2 of the upgrades were UA crew
EWR-DTW - cleared shortly after T-72.

All my flights have been really empty so it wouldn’t have mattered to us that much.

eyuro

Finally got back onto a UA flight about 2 weeks ago. I was supposed to fly 1 way EWR-MCO and drive back a car. The original outbound cleared as soon as it was supposed to. Ended up buying a return as the car was not ready on the lie flat 757 to EWR and cleared 1 minute after purchase. Went down again last week and picked the 757 flights again. I bought a RT for $98 hoping not to need the return because the car would be ready. Cleared on the way down and on the unused return. $98 for a RT EWR-MCO in lie flat Polaris seats is something that I can get used to! When I called up to tell them to put the return to EWR on ice, I told them to hold the UG for my next trip to HK. We both laughed.

fumje

What aircraft was assigned? Some do have two blocked seats in F, but some do not.

If the app said 10/12 rather than Full/12, I would guess the agent made a mistake. When seats are actually blocked, the app says something like 9(+2 blocked)/12 or Full/12 (because 10+2=12=Full). However, I can't really blame the agent for being confused, since there isn't a very clear logic that I can see.

Nomos

It was an A319. I have a feeling this is just an IT issue, it just seemed strange seeing upgrades and F fares for sale after being told that the remaining seats were blocked. I imagine that I would have been in a “blocked” seat had I paid up.

RobOnLI

Actually had this happen for the first time on a flight last week. Booked BWI-IAH-xxx. BWI-IAH was operated with an A320 and FC never showed two seats blocked in inventory. They were going to sell the flight full. The same exact thing was happening on the same approx. time departure to DEN that day. On the train to BWI I notice the IAH flight is departing on time but arriving one hour late making my connection 18 minutes. (The flight had to go around Hurricane Laura at the time). So at the check-in desk I asked about moving to the DEN flight while keeping my upgrade. The agent typed a few keys and viola I had an FC ticket but no seat assignment. He originally told me it would be assigned at the gate but then he spoke to the lead agent and got a seat unblocked for me. But it was not easy and I'm pretty sure they talked about downgrading me several times. I heard the agent helping me tell the guy, "Yes, he's Premier positive space." I'm not honestly sure why he considered me positive space since I was booked in "S" class originally and got CPU'd to PZ. I was assigned 1E which is a blocked seat on the Airbii planes. The person sitting next to me was clearly not pleased but the FA couldn't care less. Maybe positive space in this case meant I was on a revenue ticket and not an award.

I believe I read it's an F.A. call on whether 1B/1E get assigned. The FA wasn't even on the ground yet so the lead check-in agent made the call to unblock the seat. I'll also note 1B was never unblocked and the flight went out 11/11 with a list about 8 deep.

So, bottom line, BWI flights are the only ones I have seen to date that do not have the automatic blocking of seats in FC. And I don't have a large enough data sample to say whether it's all flights or limited to specific flights or days of the week. My next flights coming up already show the appropriate blocked seats (1 for E175 and 2 for mainline jets).

-RM

RobOnLI

So advanced CPU seems to be broken or just not running any longer. All of my recent flights, including my upcoming flights, that have been booked at least 96 hours in advance are not upgrading at the 1K window. All of them have had at least J6 and many of them have had PZ open. I know PZ itself is not an indicator of CPU running but in the pre-Covid era it was quite common to get CPU'd with PZ open.

Basically all of my upgrades now are coming at T-23.5 hours. Just wondering why UA has decided to stop advanced upgrades.

My next flight that this is happening on is J8...PZ2 and J8...PZ3 (connecting flights) on ERJ175s.

-RM

Lynnie_Bee

If flight booking patterns are changing like hotel booking patterns, I would say UA is wise to hold off on any upgrades until the last minute. I see hotel booking curves changing from a steady slope to a steep hockey stick in the 5 days prior to arrival. Everyone is making a "game time decision" right now. I would expect to see similar patterns in airline travel.

Personally, I wouldn't book an advance ticket on an airline right now with all the schedule changes. I don't care if the "no change fee" is in effect. The loss of residual value is obnoxious. I don't want to risk being re-routed and losing days on either end, much less losing money in the transaction. I choose to book last minute, even if it is more expensive. I don't see the airlines holding / increasing rate like they used to. Load factors don't support that kind of pattern. I also am willing to pay more for my planned itinerary, than booking cheap early and having to deal with the headache of schedule changes / re-routes / cancellations..

UAFAM

SFO-ORD cleared at T24 772
ORD-EWR cleared at T24 739
IAD-SFO cleared at 1 hour 788

Note: Since 9/20 I have noticed in some cases the sweep that used to occur at T24 is not happening anymore (even though J is only 10% full), and gate agent clears them at 1 hour prior to flight

RobOnLI

Now hitting a new low of lows. As I've commented many times, advanced CPU has been disabled seemingly on every flight I'm on.

Tomrw I'm on a short flight non-hub to a hub. Booked 3/6 (not even blocking one) and I am literally the only person on the upgrade list and have been for the past six days since I purchased the ticket. Did I get a CPU? No. Did I get one at the 24 hour mark? No.

I'm sure I'll get it but it's looking like a gate upgrade only.

-RM

Flying Machine

Hope it all works out! I thought they were doing a sweep at around 24 hours or so down to J2

UAFAM

On 80% of my flights, CPU sweep doesn't happen until the gate agent process them around 1 hr prior to the departure time.

SFO-ORD Thursday 11:45 pm on 772 with Polaris cabin

At T24, 18/50 seats were filled, NO CPU sweep happened at all, by 1 hour before flight UA was successful to sell ($ or Plus point) 20 more seats (so 38/50), Economy was full and there were 20 non rev waitlisted, CPU sweep happened at 25 minutes prior to the departure, most passengers were already on board, I picked my new boarding pass at the desk, but then Gate agent went inside the plane and hand delivered new boarding passes to the other 11 passengers!

I get it that UA needs $ and have to sell more seats in the front, but they should clearly announce that those 96/72/48/24 hours CPU for 1k/plat/gold/silver is No longer valid ON MOST FLIGHTS

RobOnLI

Yep. Except for LAX-EWR which I did last week all of my flights have been CPU'd down to J2 at the 24 or 23.5 hour mark.

It's sad that I'm literally the only person on the upgrade list, an already requalified 1K (not that that matters for purposes of CPU) and they still won't clear me and bring the flight to J2. The flight is J3..,P2 PN0 PZ0.

-RM

UAFAM

SFO-ORD 772 cleared 20 minutes before departure
ORD-DFW 175 cleared T1
DFW-ORD 175 cleared T1
ORD-SFO 739 cleared T26