jthomas2ft

Under the old United system everyone on the PNR was upgraded together by UDU. Since we are now on the pss/Continental system - if the old reservation was marked for companion upgrade by PNR will the new system honor that upgrade?

Has anyone seen this happen yet?

Thanks!

pviri

Yes my companion and I got UDU upgrade at the same time.

LilAbner

When was your flight, yesterday or today? We're talking about the NEW UA
(3/2/12 & after).

sfoflier

It seems that while the official post-merger upgrade policy on the website (http://pss.united.com/web/en-US/cont.../upgrades.aspx) is consistent with United's policy pre-merger. However, after the switch over, it seems that their computer systems and support representatives are still programmed with Continental's upgrade policy pre-merger. I am traveling with a companion on March 5th. Our itineraries were split. I am 1K and was upgraded. My companion is 2P and was not upgraded. Calling 1K line routes to Continental support and they claim my companion can only be upgraded on day of departure with 2P status...

United needs to get their story straight if you ask me...

eerickso

Flew on 3/3. Both companion and I were upgraded. (That said, we were upgraded several days prior, so I'd imagine the old system was processing the upgrade.)

sbm12

If you are on the same PNR then you will be upgraded together, just like the old UA policy. If you are on separate PNRs the companion can be upgraded at the gate, just like the old CO policy.

Darlox

Posting this since I was bitten by it again yesterday. Note that I don't believe that this is integration-related (or at least not ENTIRELY integration-related) since it's been happening long before this weekend. However, the post-March 3 entitlement policies seem set to make this worse, and CO was never able to resolve the core problem (to my knowledge) even PRE-integration. The last thread I could find on this was from 2010...

In short: If you book a spouse / travel companion on the same PNR as you, the system will (frequently) automatically split the PNRs at the EUA window, and (even more frequently) upon check-in at a kiosk. In the days before E+ (for CO), this was annoying but the agents were able to make exceptions when you told them what was going on.

Some time in the last 96 hours -- pre-, during-, or post- integration, I can't confirm -- they again split my PNR without any action on my part. My (non-elite) wife was shunted off into her own record, and lost her 7D seat. We showed up to check in, and she had no baggage allowance and no seats (automatically assigned to 28E). The agents -- both the UA agent checking us in, and her CO "helper" who was there for the integration weekend -- were unable to do anything about it. 7D was an available seat ("P7D" for Premium seat, in their lingo), but my wife could not be assigned into it. Nor could they waive the baggage charge -- which, fortunately, we were able to work around since I was under my 1K limit. Nor could they get her onto the upgrade list as a companion.

After our first flight, split seating in Y, we tried again at the club in DEN. The CO "helper" there was able to call the help desk, and after ~30 minutes, she came and found us in the club and delivered a boarding pass for 7D. (YAY! Thank you nice agent...) But they were unable to get her onto the upgrade list. I was upgraded (and gave her my BP this time), and ended up sitting in Y as 3 others were upgraded behind us -- the at-gate companion status would have cleared for her had the PNRs not been split.

The big problem is that more often than not, the better seats are taken by someone else before I even notice the PNRs have been split, much less get to an agent who is willing and able to fix it. When traveling to Asia (which we do 3-4 times annually) the baggage allowance is an issue. This is really vexing, particularly when traveling with my wife, since they tout the companion benefits of being upper Premier, but then seem to go out of their way to nuke those benefits 24-96 hours out, and if not then, almost always upon check-in -- leaving companions out in the cold for the return flights.

Has anyone else had success preventing this from happening at the EUA window, or upon check-in, while still remaining upgrade-eligible? I haven't seen this on the list of integration-related issues to be fixed, most likely because the problem long pre-dates the integration.

pviri

It's happened to me exactly just like your describe on my flight tomorrow maybe it's time to switch

olydan1

I'm flying tomorrow with my wife SFO-OGG. As a 1k I cleared the upgrade list a bit late, after checking in today. However my wife (companion) was not upgraded.

In speaking with customer support they indicated they will follow Continental policy to split reservation and only give the premier member the upgrade. I was told to "go to the ticketing gate and request companion be sitting with you... they won't make it onto the upgrade wait list automatically so this is only way". This seems to be a horrible direction to take splitting spouses up and also conflicts to what is shown on website.

Any ideas how to get my wife upgraded or are we SOL now? Anyone else experienced this lately?

"Companion Upgrade Policy
One companion traveling on a paid ticket on the same reservation as a Premier member is eligible for Complimentary Premier Upgrades on select flights, and may be confirmed with the same priority as the Premier member, even on the day of departure. If the companion is a Premier member, the upgrade will be processed according to the highest Premier status level in the reservation.

If a reservation includes three or more members, and only one is not a Premier member, the Complimentary Premier Upgrades will be processed according to the lowest Premier status level in the reservation. If a reservation includes more than one non-Premier companion, it will not be processed automatically. In these cases, Premier members should call the Premier Priority Desk to request a separate reservation for themselves and the eligible companion."

Weez_1000

You're not SOL but you can only add companions at the airport on day of departure. So depending on availability then she might be SOL.

Edit: Thats assuming the CO policy hasn't changed.

LilAbner

This is NOT true and they have not got this programed into their system yet.
Whoever told the OP that they are following the pmCO way is DEAD WRONG! It has been mentioned in the latest published info that it is the elite and one companion together that are eligible for ug at the highest qualifier's window.

jthomas2ft

How about a legacy PNR with more than one companion. Under the old UA system all companions were flagged for UDU, any data points on whether the legacy reservations continue to work like that? Otherwise I am thinking of splitting the PNR and then using CR1/SWU's.

Thoughts?

GoPUBoilers

I am flying tomorrow (3/7) with a companion under one PNR (booked on PMCO website), and I am the only one with status (Gold at the moment, will drop to Silver at some point). Since the integration was 3/3, I believe the windows started opening prior to conversion, so I am not sure what will ultimately happen to our reservation.

Of course, there's a good chance we both won't get upgraded, but I'll try and follow up here afterwards.

bentruler

That's not what happened yesterday to me, or I somehow did it wrong.

Me (2P) +1 on single PNR.

At checking (T-23:45) I was asked if I wanted to be put on the upgrade standby list. Said yes.

This split the PNR and put my companion on the list, but with his GM status. I cleared about 4 hours later, he cleared at the gate.

So we started on one PNR, but checkin forced us to seperate PNR's. From what I gather if we could stay on one PNR the policy is together, but the technology split us if I wanted to be on the waitlist.

Maybe I shouldn't have checked in, but who knows how that would have gone. (I'll ignore the hassle that a split PNR caused when we went to drop bags and I had no idea what PNR he was on, and being 8 he had no credit cards...)

TacaCopaFlyer

Any idea on how Copa will handle this? I separated myself as Premier 1K, but my wife and daughter, both Premier Plats, are on a combined PNR because there was a lower fare for the child, but she had to be traveling with adult. Will they be upgraded at the Plat window if 2 seats are available? I know on CO, I could not have separated off a minor if the ticket was purchased for a child.

I saw their inflight magazine on 1 March, and it looks like they are 100% on board with mileage plus.