Consolidated "Waitlist for Award Seats Questions/Issues [ARCHIVE]
 

It looks like the ability to waitlist for award seat became another casualty of this merger. I have award flight in X booked on CO prior to the merger. Now I need to have my return flight move to the following day. The flight is several months away but there no award seats available for the next day. I just got off the phone with United rep and was told that it’s not possible to waitlist for award seats, it’s only possible as part of an upgrade. I know that last year I was able to waitlist for more convenient CO award flight in X with no problems; I think they even allowed me to get waitlisted for two different flights on the same day and I didn’t have status with neither UA nor CO.

Hang up and call again - I have multiple waitlists on a bunch of reservations for both a n/s alternative to a connecting flight, along with waitlisting a higher class of service on a domestic leg portion of an int'l F ticket

Maybe only elites can do that now. I don't have status with UA.

That shouldn't matter - they'll just waitlist you for the "all flyers" award bucket (say X) instead of the "elite flyers" bucket (XN)

Agents' responses are so variable at this point with all the confusion going on

From a newbie.

I'm in the same situation as OP. Have a saver award for a non stop from OGG to SFO in early 2013. Would like to get on a wait list for a non stop flight earlier on the same day, but saver award for that flight shown as not available. I called CS and was told that I could not get on a wait list. Is this because I have no special status or because they just don't do wait lists any more (or I just got bad information from CS)? Should I keep trying?

I had no idea that we can waitlist award tickets. That is pretty cool.

Does the waitlist work for saver awards and regular award tickets?

Appreciate the heads up.

I was able to wait list for an IAH-HNL-GUM flight 11 months out with no status a few years ago. Of course, the IAH-HNL legs didn't clear either way but it was nice to one I was waitlisted and didn't have to keep calling. Glad to seethe feature seems to have survivrped the cut.

It's a nice feature - works for co-terminals too :)

I only do Savers, can only assume it works for "regular" (if you mean the overpriced, last seat Standard awards that you should try and stay away from booking)

The kinds of WL I'm aware of:

1. Booked in a lower cabin on a higher int'l itinerary - WL the higher cabin (be it a short domestic leg or a long int'l one)
2. Have a multi-segment trip, WL a non-stop
3. Plan B (still available?) - get confirmed in Y, but pay the C fare and get a WL C segment

I tried calling again and got the same answer: it’s not possible to waitlist for award seat (X). The way UA rep explained this to me is that I can only waitlist for (X) seat if I purchased revenue ticket on the same flight but would like to use miles in case award seat becomes available. This whole thing makes very little sense.
Can someone please confirm that he/she was able to waitlist for award (X) ticket after the merger without having any UA status?

For those who say waitlists are allowed, are they permitted on multi-carrier iteneraries? Or just on UA-metal only?

The waitlist I need is actually to downgrade. The horror! But presently I'm in Y and my son's in saver F (can you tell who's on the paid ticket and who has the award?). There were no saver seats available in either Y or C, and a standard Y r/t to Europe at 110k miles is too close to a saver F at 137k to make the Y ticket worth considering. Hoping to find a seat in C open up. Of course, he's pretty happy with F... especially since the TATL portion (ORD-FRA) in in seat #1 on a 747.

Yup - I currently have UA n/s C waitlists on the following C itineraries:

1. LX JFK-GVA-BCN (WL EWR-BCN)
2. TP BCN-LIS-EWR (WL BCN-EWR)
3. NH HKG-NRT, UA NRT-EWR (WL HKG-EWR)

One that's a Y itinerary for non-elite parents for miles coming out of their accounts:
UA PDX-SEA-EWR (WL PDX-EWR)

Plus a bunch where I'm WL the domestic F cabin on an intl F award, but only domestic Y available for now

<...snip...>

Welcome to FlyerTalk, donsug!

I was just wait listed on fare bucket (IN) for a flight from BOS-IAD, which is the first leg of a BOS-IAD-NRT-TPE flight, where the rest of the itinerary had confirmed Saver First seats. Does anyone know when the award wait list starts to clear? Is it dependent on status (I'm 1K, my wife is Silver, we're traveling together but on different record locators)?

Please forgive what might be a basic question. I checked the glossary and Googled it without success.
What is “n/s”?
Thanks.

nonstop - I have a bunch of connecting C flights on OALs, but will subject myself to the 757 TATL to skip a connection. Might regret it coming from BCN though!

Thank you.

was able to do a waitlist today
 

I am not elite, but my award ticket was booked using miles of a UA Silver. Today i was able to get a UA agent (using click to call after long unsuccessful hold times on premier phone line) to do one waitlist per flight on United metal --for the same flight a different day in one direction and for a nonstop (versus my current connecting flight) on the return. Don't know if this would have been allowed if I was trying to waitlist non-UA metal. And the agent would not allow me to be on a waitilist for more than one flight per direction (which UA previously had allowed).

This may not be the brightest question, but I've never used my miles on a domestic award. Does the above statement apply to a domestic itinerary?

i.e. Two Segments, only one will confirm into F. Does the other segment - booked in Y - get WL for F? Don't see anything on the intinerary... call in?

Should work the same - and yes, have to call in

They are permitted on multi-carrier itineraries, but only UA segments can be waitlisted. You cannot waitlist for a partner-operated flight but you can for a UA-operated flight where there are partner segments in the same trip.

I'm in the same bucket with one itin; I can find ON inventory but not IN, and though you'd think she'd be happy of the chance for international F, my wife has said she wants to travel in the same cabin as me (C). Given that at the moment the ON on that route is only 10k RDM more one-way than IN, I'm leaning toward booking the F seats for her anyway.

I figure if I book it in saver F, the worst thing is that she asks my seatmate if he/she would like to fly in F instead of C, and they swap seats. :)

so... if i'm going DCA-MEM(US) MEM-IAH(UA) and want to waitlist for the direct DCA_IAH(UA), I can't coz I have "partner flights" in my itin?

One would think UA would rather have me on their metal than that of another they need to "pay"...

Huh? Having One Partner Segment On Award Ticket Means No Waitlisting UA Segments?
 

I guess the merger is a joining of each airline's worst policies?

I have an award ticket with UA flights out and OZ flights back. 2 of the UA segments are confirmed in X/coach because F seats are not available at the saverpass level. Fine - at CO I could just waitlist the F seats in the appropriate class and they would clear when available.

Now I'm told because of the OZ segments on the way back, they can't waitlist any UA segments?

I've never heard of such a dimwitted policy. I don't want to waitlist partner flights, I want to waitlist UA flights.

Was this agent correct? Or did I get someone misinformed?

Bad agent - here are some WL segments I have for upcoming flights:

JFK-ZRH-BCN in LX C - have EWR-BCN on UA C waitlisted
BCN-LIS-EWR in TP C - BCN-EWR on UA C WL'd
HKG-NRT-EWR in NH/UA C - have HKG-EWR on UA C WL'd
Also have domestic F waitlisted on flights where only Y space available on an int'l F ticket

Exactly!

... and this after I got the "well I've been an agent for 23 years... and we've never done that ..." speech. Hope my PNR isn't documented

So we can still waitlist, even on an itin with a codeshare (as long as the waitlisted segment is UA)?

That was on thing I liked a lot about PMCO vs PMUA, so I'm hopeful that the agents who have told people 'no' were just misinformed--like the TA at AVL yesterday who told me that as a platinum I qualified for only two free domestic bags. :rolleyes:

This is great news, and flies in the face of what a UA agent told me just before the merger. Guess I'll have to brave the wait and call to get that done.

I have a award reservation in J class, and the one UA segment (HKG-SIN) I couldn't get I class, only X class. Do they allow waitlist for the change of class?

Yup!

Two agents tell me "No"
 

I am in the same situation. According to both agents, the new CO system does NOT allow wait lists. Both told me to check online daily. Very frustrating and waste of time.

I just called to waitlist an XN segment into IN (a domestic two-class flight connecting to a global first ON award)... and heard the same story... The agent told me that waitlist is not allowed. She seemed a bit lost, so I will call back again tomorrow...

Btw, does the PMUA FFCC still exist in SHARES? And would this instance qualify if no award seats are released into IN before checkin?

Hang up and call again?
(the question mark because I'm still not convinced that anyone at the new UA really knows what the answer is....although I believe it's supposed to be 'yes, that's possible'...as it was with the old CO system.)

I have one PMCO Saver reservation in C on UA with a connection in C on CA, and my reservation on ua.com still shows me as wait listed in C on the n/s from EWR-HKG. For the companion reservation I could only book X on CA and cannot waitlist with CA for C, but the reservation also shows waitlist for n/s on UA in C.

Hello,

Some more questions on this waitlisting deal with SHARES. I booked a really nice combo C/F award that includes *A partners. Took four calls and two hours. The two connecting domestic UA flights only had Y award seats. Originally, these flights showed up twice in the ua.com itin, once for confirmed 'X' and another waitlisted for 'O'. It never ticketed for several days and I had to call back, agent said the waitlisting screwed up the ticket. Ua.com changed to not show the waitlisted segments and this agent got me in the right queue and it ticketed shortly thereafter. He said I would still be waitlisted. So here are the questions :

1) If I am really waitlisted for F, should this show on the ua.com itin?
2) If it were to show, I assume it should be for 'ON' since I'm 1K? Is 'ON' always >= 'O'?
3) Lets say it doesn't clear, at T-24 where should I be on the upgrade list? Old UA you were on the separate FFCC list, which pretty much put you at the top. No idea with SHARES?

Thanks for any input.

---Lawnboy

And we have posters who have done so post-3/3, too (UA-NYC's reassuring voice comes to mind :)).

I'm about to do so myself, so will report back in some time tomorrow. Booked my wife's tickets for a December vacation, and need to waitlist her for the same TPAC as my paid ticket (she's currently on IAD-NRT; I want her on IAD-SFO-NRT). I expect to have to try a few agents and have also already set up ExpertFlyer alerts for I/IN and O/ON inventory on said flights (wish I could set up one alert for any of the above instead of four alerts per flight!).

I am a non-elite on UA. I'm on LH-UA-UA metal on an F award. The last segment (domestic on UA) is in Y. Thanks to some good advice, I called in and was able to wait list for F - two of us - and it does show up on the itinerary.

Ya, I held for a good long time but finally got an agent who knew what they were doing. It was recommended to ask for a PMCO agent to get it done, but I lucked out and got one on the second try. :D

I'll relate my own experience in mid-March trying to waitlist one segment of an IN award that was booked in X.

I called in and supposedly got added to the waitlist not once but twice. It showed up on my itinerary as an extra line labeled waitlisted. Both times I was somehow bounced off of the waitlist, the second time the evening before the flight. The mobile app never showed me on any waitlist either.

When I checked in at LAS I was told by the TA that I was not on any waitlist and she had been told that generally if you accept the X booking that was it. She also said that she thought she had seen a memo recently saying there was now (all this 2-3 weeks ago) an exception to this rule for GS and 1K and that if she could find the memo and if she could figure out how to do it she would add me to the waitlist. (The waitlisted segment was DEN-PHL, LAS-DEN was already in I.

I asked at the gate at DEN and was told I was not on any waitlist and anyway they had already CPUed first class full. I flew in economy. I wrote this up in a feedback message to UA but I have heard nothing back.

So I'd recommend keeping an eye on any saver awards waitlisted from X to I. They may have changed the way the system is working by now but...

Can I only waitlist for one flight - for a given segment, that is.

Use case: I am currently booked in a saver award SAN-IAD-EWR. Do I have to waitlist for one specific SAN-EWR nonstop or can I waitlist for either of the 2 SAN-EWR nonstops?

I believe it is only one on an award flight. Revenue is different.
Yes, it should. If the extra segment isn't there then you aren't properly listed.
That's the way it is supposed to be. That said, if they are the connecting domestic flights then you will actually be listed for I or IN, not O/ON, unless it is a 3-cabin plane.
You should be at the top as a displaced F passenger since you paid for F but are seated in Y.

Is there supposed to be some automated sweep for clearing waitlisted segments?

For example, my wife's December itin just opened up several F seats (IN3) on an award res for one of the domestic segments, for which she's currently confirmed in Y but waitlisted for F. Her itin still shows the segment as waitlisted for F (IN).

I can't call until later this evening, but so far, it's been IN3 for several hours with no clearing of the waitlisted segment.