Gold can book E+ Seats at no charge - what's the policy?
 

Hi all-

I just booked a flight for 4, from DEN to BKK connecting at NRT. Normally when I book through United.com I can get seats in E+ without charge. I think at Gold, I can put one companion into e+, too. But on this reservation, it asked for a fee to grab any E+ seats.

Anyone know what, exactly, the policy is there?

Silver: Elite Member + 1 at check in
Gold: Elite Member +1 at booking
Plat/1K: Elite Member +8 at booking.

I’m wondering if you have to split the reservation to get the benefit? Yourself and one on one and the other two on another? Just guessing...

Yeah, my guess is that the IT isn't smart enough to see a reservation for 4 and realize that a gold member can choose E+ for themselves plus 1 of the others, it probably just sees 4 > 2 thus no free E+.

I always try to avoid splitting when I've got the whole family, though. Some odd things have happened ,for example on we had IRROPS and half of us got rebooked on a different flight. Stuff like that.

For this one, I think I might pick up the phone and break out my best please and thank you!

Your best bet is to split the reservation in 2: you with one kid, your spouse with one kid. Then you can decide if you want to pay to get Economy + seats for the two in the other reservation.

For IRROPS also, it's easier to accommodate groups of 2 instead of a group of 4. And with one adult in each group, you should be fine.

Don't you then lose the additional luggage allowances once split?

No, you don't have to split the reservation. It will let you select E+ seats for free for two of the travelers and then puts the $ amount for the remaining ones. It takes a bit of clicking if you want to pick exactly which of the travelers get the E+ seats. My strategy in these cases is to grab the aisle and window and hopefully the middle will stay open so one of us could move in at 24h (I'm Silver, my spouse is Gold) or be able to switch with somebody. And same reservation or separate, a phone agent can always put the correct number of companions into E+.

That's a good point. But with 2 passengers on the one Gold reservation, that's 4 pieces of luggage up to 70 lbs. If the 2 kids are of the young kind, it's a lot of pain to deal with 8 pieces + the carry-on cabin luggage.

The main issue is still the potential IRROPS. If it's just that one flight, it should be less problem fitting a family of 4 on another flight. If it's a system meltdown with hundred of flights cancelled, then it may take days to fit a family of 4 in the same flight.

OP can always split the reservation at that point if necessary.

OP: Are you platinum or gold? Your original post asks about the platinum allowance in the title and the gold allowance in the body. As you can see, it makes a difference. If you're platinum, you may be running into a glitch that happens sometimes when E+ eligible travelers are listed as having to pay. That can happen sometimes if the flight is very far in the future, as well as at other random times that nobody seems to be able to define, and it will sometimes clear up on its own but can definitely be taken care of with a phone call.

I'm Gold. The reason I wrote platinum was that I just had knee surgery and I'm a little wacked from the meds!

:-) Fair enough. Here's to a quick recovery. ^

In that case, the advice from others should carry, including the possibility of calling to request assignments if the app and website aren't cooperating.

Actually I've found that UA is super helpful if you are traveling with small kids on one reservation, so I'd rather keep us all together and if anything goes wrong, we can split up. But really, if we are stuck in NRT again it's easiest to just overnight together if need be.

That's the expected behavior, but it's just not working.

I called UA and told them the situation, and they sorted it out for me so we have 2 in e+ and two not. But, it looks like my wife will make Silver in the next month or so and I should be able to call back in and grab two more e+ seats at that time.

Evidently this is a known issue on the website, not because it's a 4-pax reservation but because there is some oddity in the NRT connections or ANA codeshares thats screws up the system. Or so said the rep.

An ANA/UA mixed itinerary and an E+ assignment just doesn't play well together I guess . One time I had an ANA segment, then a UA segment on 016 stock, and the agent seemed to be plainly unable to check me in saying, "we can see your reservation and confirm it's ticketed, but the system just isn't letting me issue a boarding pass..." After a bunch of phone calls, a couple of superiors, and 40 minutes at the check-in desk at HND, I was finally handed a boarding pass for the ANA and UA segments, only to find I'd been kicked out of E+.

On another trip, on a NH stock ticket booked via a third-party website, ANA's system automatically checked me in for an ANA flight, and the following UA flight before the T-24 hour window for the latter (I was still Silver); the NH website couldn't handle changing my seat into E+, and the UA website couldn't touch the reservation either.

Fortunately there was a 5 minute window once I landed at my connection airport until the T-1 hour window for the UA flight, when I was finally able to quickly change my assignment on the UA app.

Hi all - family emergency and had to purchase a last minute set of 4 tickets RT ATL to SIN via the LAX -> SIN flight. It's L class revenue. Due to last minute purchase (departure 6/6) we have some terrible seats. Last row, and 2 kids separated from parents, kind of challenging for a 17h55m flight. Mobile app shows $189 apiece to upgrade just the LAX -> SIN leg to E+ and for the leg back too.

Is this a reasonable price, or should we wait a bit closer to departure? FWIW Polaris is $2600 ea ouch! :)