karenkay

it'll be interesting to see what happens with this (although i suspect i already know, and it's not a 'change you'll like'). in the past, tickets booked by UA elites for others did not get the baggage allowance or other elite benefits...only CO tickets did--and i'm not sure it was a named benefit, just one of those happy accidents.

my hunch is this will be one of those times where the CO benefits won't continue as they tend to favor the elite consumer...and the new united doesn't seem all that eager to do that, unfortunately.

okrogius

CO behavior was largely a systems issue that just didn't warrant enough attention to fix. So new UA should inherit it as part of SHARES unless they now prioritized fixing it.

damaxer91

Anyone with experience yet?

Henwurst

I made a booking before the merger (issued by CO) for a non-status friend, who flew on March 3. The 1K status did not show up automatically on the boarding passes, but the check in agent (PMUA) fixed that without us having to ask. Based on that data point it seems the benefit will continue although the system is not glitch free.

weezl

I booked a CO/UA flight about 6 weeks ago online with my miles for my m-in-law; turns out she was in E+ and had boarding Group 1 on her BP. She's flown on UA and/or CO for years with my miles but never had my status (she's a GM). Is this something new?

ckaught78

Same thing just happened to me. I bought my wife a ticket with my miles and she was able to use my status. Free E+ at booking and priority boarding. This was never the case with legacy UA.

FlyinHawaiian

Yes, it appears that after the March 3 integration, members travelling on miles/instruments sponsored by another member are given that member's status (if it is higher than their own). I believe this is how the system worked at CO.

weezl

Well, Howdee-do! An actual COdbaUA improvement; of course, it means that there are even MORE Group 1 pax boarding all at once (why not just paint the red carpet black?)

dcdavido

Look carefully at the published rules here.

"All travelers on waitlisted Global Premier Upgrades, Regional Premier Upgrades, and MileagePlus Upgrade Awards: Sorted by Premier status of the redeeming account, then fare class and time of request"

A loophole large enough to drive a truck through. Simply trade miles to a GS friend and they sponsor you and *presto* you're on the upgrade list as a GS!

weezl

ACK1 retracted his Q but it was indeed a valid Q, given the loophole. I did look, and the answer is I do not know; it was booked full when I looked at 24 hours, so the standby list was gone, only saw the ones that got the upgrade on the website...

kb1992

My non-status colleague is on waitlist for BOS-LAX using CR1 from a GS account.

This is a very tough route to clear the upgrade.

I am interested to see how that goes.

weezl

Do let us know; even if he does not get upgraded, it would be good to see where he starts and ends up on the list.

rwsteelers

This was an old perk for PPE - and now extended to the new side of the aisle. If you uses miles to buy ticket look at the receipt it will show your MP# and status...so beyond upgrades also premier access/bag fee benefits etc. apply.

weirdlyndon

Made an award reservation for a friend to go LGA-IAD-AUA prior to 3/3. The old .bomb would only let me put him and his girlfriend into regular E- seats. Upon cutover to the new site, system recognizes miles came from my account and let me put them in E+. Needless to say I got a very nice text message from my buddy this morning! I do like the fact that my status carried to them for not just seats, but baggage allowance and priority baggage as well.

UAzip

As we understood it in the PMCO world, this was a bug that CO didn't feel like bothering to fix--sorta a bonus. Award travel booked by an Elite for someone else would confer the Elite's privileges on the traveler. For example, last fall I booked an award ticket on US using some of my CO miles for a friend, and his boarding passes showed my OnePass number and Star Silver. The agent at US that I talked to to make sure this was OK said that indeed the CO number stays in there and thus takes my status with it to his ticket. Evidently, this unintentional perk may have stayed in force, which is the opposite of what we thought might happen--that it would evaporate on March 3. Instead they seem to have actually formalized some of the status carryover to others!

I believe that UA Insider (then CO Insider) did say that it was a bug, but one that would require more work to correct than they felt it was worth, and thus one couldn't complain in the event that the status didn't transfer to the traveler in such a case, as it's not actually a published benefit but just a bug. This is different than the instrument redemption but related, of course.