Jul 24, 2016, 4:23 pm
Last edit by: WineCountryUA
Operational Upgrades - Op-ups -- are upgrades that occur when there is a need by the airline to move passenger to the higher cabin: could be due to overbooking of the lower cabin, could be a weight and balance issue, could be a broken seat, ....... whatever the reason, it is an airline driven reason, not a customer request.
If the issue still exists after all upgrades have cleared, then the common approach is for passengers to be selected based on status or status/fare but the GA has discretion and may make a selection for other reasons.
Overbooking is the most common reason, as there is no available / allowed seat for all the passengers in the cabin. If the cabin has available seats, there will be no op-ups except for some special corner cases (such as weight & balance).
Asking for an upgrade because of a special occasion or you are dressed especially professional, or you have a suave manner does not work, those often repeated "upgrade secret hints" will just get you a chuckle or a "go away" look.
pmUA FT classic thread on Op-ups - Operational upgrades from a gate agent's perspective
Related threads:
2014 Thread - Are Discretionary Complimentary (Operational) Upgrade Common on UA?
Chances of Operational Upgrade on International Flights (Honeymoon)? ..
Consolidated United Operational Upgrade (OP-UPs) Experiences
If the issue still exists after all upgrades have cleared, then the common approach is for passengers to be selected based on status or status/fare but the GA has discretion and may make a selection for other reasons.
Overbooking is the most common reason, as there is no available / allowed seat for all the passengers in the cabin. If the cabin has available seats, there will be no op-ups except for some special corner cases (such as weight & balance).
Asking for an upgrade because of a special occasion or you are dressed especially professional, or you have a suave manner does not work, those often repeated "upgrade secret hints" will just get you a chuckle or a "go away" look.
pmUA FT classic thread on Op-ups - Operational upgrades from a gate agent's perspective
Related threads:
2014 Thread - Are Discretionary Complimentary (Operational) Upgrade Common on UA?
Chances of Operational Upgrade on International Flights (Honeymoon)? ..
Consolidated United Operational Upgrade (OP-UPs) Experiences
Consolidated - Chance of Operational Upgrade (Op-Up) on my flight?
Feb 14, 2019, 3:09 pm
#451
Join Date: Dec 2016
Programs: Mileage Plus 1K \\ ConciergeKey
Posts: 531
Going LAX - NRT on the 27th of April - have 2 pax, a 1K and Silver - I keep checking..but nothing, but I do see PN>0 so hopefully that means PZ opens up and I can call in and have the GPU cleared!
Feb 14, 2019, 3:27 pm
#452
Join Date: Nov 2012
Programs: BA Bronze, United 1K, HH Gold, SPG Platinum, Marriott Platinum
Posts: 3,477
Feb 14, 2019, 3:39 pm
#453
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: PHX
Programs: AS 75K; UA 1MM; Hyatt Globalist; Marriott LTP; Hilton Diamond (Aspire)
Posts: 56,450
Feb 14, 2019, 3:55 pm
#454
Join Date: Nov 2012
Programs: BA Bronze, United 1K, HH Gold, SPG Platinum, Marriott Platinum
Posts: 3,477
Feb 14, 2019, 3:59 pm
#455
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 11,460
There were two late instrument upgrades and the rest are non-rev. I think some of the op-ups came out of E-, even. There could be a few explanations for that detail, but I'd hope that means all 1K in Y were moved forward.
Feb 14, 2019, 4:22 pm
#456
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: San Francisco
Programs: UA MM Plat, UA 1MM, Hilton Lifetime Gold, Marriott Gold, Hertz Gold, CLEAR, AS MVP Gold
Posts: 3,617
I assume op ups while not on upgrade list get "upgraded" or seats first while NRSA would follow IF there are any seats available? At least that has been my experience when traveling with NRSA pax.
Feb 14, 2019, 4:26 pm
#457
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: MSP
Programs: DL PM, UA Gold, WN, Global Entry; +others wherever miles/points are found
Posts: 14,406
Not sure the order in re "best seat" selection, but in bulk it doesn't matter. Op-ups are dictated by the oversale in Y, and they are obviously not going to clear so many NRSA that they have to kick off a revenue pax.
Feb 14, 2019, 4:28 pm
#458
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 21,391
Yes. They will run the instrument upgrade list, then upgrade enough op-up passengers so that every revenue passenger has a seat. If there are seats left over after that, they would be available for NRSA pax.
Feb 14, 2019, 4:30 pm
#459
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 11,460
From what I saw watching this flight, all the NRSA listed for J and Y, and they were processed after the op-ups. J was available, so they all got J; since Y was full, I assume any who didn't list for J would have been left behind (or might have gotten a hint from the GA to reconsider strategy), but that didn't happen here.
Feb 14, 2019, 4:53 pm
#460
Join Date: May 2012
Location: ORF, RIC
Programs: UA LT 1K, 3 MM; Marriott Titanium; IHG Platinum
Posts: 6,956
Cheers.
Feb 14, 2019, 5:03 pm
#461
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 21,391
The GA was just being snippy.It simply isn't possible that everybody on an oversold flight had a G fare and that status is only a tiebreaker. If the flight were to start to fill like that, UA would close out the discount buckets.
Feb 14, 2019, 5:21 pm
#462
Join Date: May 2012
Location: ORF, RIC
Programs: UA LT 1K, 3 MM; Marriott Titanium; IHG Platinum
Posts: 6,956
If the op-up is purely based on status, you won’t see those E- seats becoming available during op-upping process because B789 has a very large E+ section and it is unlikely that 1Ks sits in E- section. So, we do need more data before making a conclusion. Hope that Op will come back to add another data point.
Feb 14, 2019, 5:47 pm
#463
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 21,391
If the op-up is purely based on status, you won’t see those E- seats becoming available during op-upping process because B789 has a very large E+ section and it is unlikely that 1Ks sits in E- section. So, we do need more data before making a conclusion. Hope that Op will come back to add another data point.
Basically, you're reading way too much into one offhand statement by a gate agent in a bad mood. Maybe on the last couple of flights she worked, the only op-ups were GSes and 1Ks on high fares. Maybe she was angry because her best friend was a Platinum on an E fare but she had to follow policy. Who knows?
What I can tell you is that the op-up threads are full of "I got an upgrade as a 1K during this low business travel period" messages but I don't remember seeing a lot of "I don't have status, but I bought an expensive ticket at the last minute, and instead of my non-reclining seat in the middle of the last row, they gave me business class!"
Feb 14, 2019, 6:20 pm
#464
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: IAH, YYC
Programs: UA 1K
Posts: 753
Hi all. Writing this from somewhere over Alaska. While I appreciate all of you guys cheering for me in this thread, unfortunately I’m sitting in seat 21J, in the e+ section ☹️
Like many of you, I’m quite perplexed about what happened, so maybe someone can shed some light on it?
By the time I got to the gate in LAX about 1 hour before the flight there were 7 seats blocked. the gate agent in LAX was paging a lot of people. There were so many people that I couldn’t track how many where coming from standbys and how many were not on the standby list, all the while, 7 seats were still blocked.
Then about 40 mins before departure all 7 blocked seats disappeared in one shot, and then a bunch more standbys cleared. The moment the 7 blocked disappeared I knew I had no shot and boarded.
the lead FA on board came to my seat to thank me for being a 1K. I saw her make one other stop in the e+ cabin and it looked like there were 5 people total on whatever list she was reading from. My best guess at this stage is that either all 7 people were on a flight which misconnected, or I was too far down the list on a K fare for make the op-up?
side note: my fiancé is in J due to a GPU (she had to change her plans after we booked and W was the only fare available, with an easy GPU). She came back to see me to say that there are still empty seats up there and that they should upgrade me. I had to tell her that’s not how it works.
Like many of you, I’m quite perplexed about what happened, so maybe someone can shed some light on it?
By the time I got to the gate in LAX about 1 hour before the flight there were 7 seats blocked. the gate agent in LAX was paging a lot of people. There were so many people that I couldn’t track how many where coming from standbys and how many were not on the standby list, all the while, 7 seats were still blocked.
Then about 40 mins before departure all 7 blocked seats disappeared in one shot, and then a bunch more standbys cleared. The moment the 7 blocked disappeared I knew I had no shot and boarded.
the lead FA on board came to my seat to thank me for being a 1K. I saw her make one other stop in the e+ cabin and it looked like there were 5 people total on whatever list she was reading from. My best guess at this stage is that either all 7 people were on a flight which misconnected, or I was too far down the list on a K fare for make the op-up?
side note: my fiancé is in J due to a GPU (she had to change her plans after we booked and W was the only fare available, with an easy GPU). She came back to see me to say that there are still empty seats up there and that they should upgrade me. I had to tell her that’s not how it works.
Last edited by david_oz; Feb 14, 2019 at 6:26 pm
Feb 14, 2019, 6:35 pm
#465
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 21,391
side note: my fiancé is in J due to a GPU (she had to change her plans after we booked and W was the only fare available, with an easy GPU). She came back to see me to say that there are still empty seats up there and that they should upgrade me. I had to tell her that’s not how it works.
That also answers why E- seats would have briefly appeared during the op-up process -- those were the misconnects getting offloaded.