fgirard

Last month, I purchased SNA-LIS as a round-trip, with the return being LIS-EWR-SNA. Fast forward to yesterday when I noticed there was a schedule change, even though it was only 10 minutes, I still had to click on "Accept Changes." When I clicked through to try and re-select seats (it erased my previous selections), it threw out the:

So, I called in since the ticket was now out of sync, and the agent who I got kept on insisting that my fare was an economy fare with a free upgrade to business. I kept on countering that with, "if you look at the fare basis, it does not say VUP, WUP, etc..." And he even indicated that he would have to re-seat me in Y because there isn't upgrade space available. I then politely excused myself and ended the call. I HUACA'ed and managed to get the ticket re-synchronized.

Therefore, what is with the agents and not realizing that international P fares are not like domestic P fares?

destinio

Interesting... it seems to fit into the recent reports of ticketing issues related to fare-mixing.

How did you manage to do it? What do you mean by HUACA?

fgirard

I just called in again, and got another agent who did not give me any hassle and just re-synced the ticket with the reservation.

FLYMSY

Hang Up And Call Again
Hopefully, the next agent will solve the problem.

WineCountryUA

Neither is what the agent stated true for domestic -UP/-UPDI fares

BBSHOPSINGER

Indeed, if you do a search for first-class fares domestically, the lower-priced tickets are often P fares. There's no reason for agents to ever assume P fares are upgrades.

fgirard

The first agent kept on insisting that I had booked economy and got a free upgrade to C.

JONEZY00

I had a similar issue when checking in for a AMS-IAD flight about two weeks ago. The agent changed my seat to coach by mistake. When trying to undo the mistake the Supervisor stated that this was an upgrade and would be difficult to get the seat back. I had to show that that was a paid P fare ticket. He then got my business seat back and all was fine.

In The 216

What you experienced is one of my biggest issues with United. The way they market/sell and then subsequently treat P-fares is very, very misleading and it's hit and miss with agents that fully understand them.

blueman2

Contrary to what some say, this STILL IS AN ISSUE!! 2 weeks ago I called to do an SDC (yeah, my mistake, but I was driving and did not want to use the app) and the agent said I can only SDC to economy due to my economy fare basis. There was both P and the underlying W economy fare open, so I should have gotten the seat. I hung up and when I arrived at the airport, did it online in 15 seconds flat.

P fares being confused as economy upgrades remains a big issue for me with UA.

Kacee

Time to end the call the very first time the agent says that.

embarcadero1

This is one of a million amazingly irritating, anti-consumer practices at this abortion of an airline.

Referring to all premium cabin fares as "economy with upgrade" is SOP for all rebooking, or so it would appear.

Never let them get away away with it. It's straight-up fraud.

zombietooth

I have had several P and Z fare flights requiring reissuance or rebooking, including IRROPS situations, recently and never encountered anything like this.

jackexu

I think lots cheap P class are economy-upgrade fare.
It sold as P class but fare basis is "VXXXXXXX", which means "V-up".
If any IRROP happened, the app will auto search the same fare class based on the First letter of fare basis. It means, if there is any IRROP happen, the app will only show options of Economy "V" class instead of "P" class.

Just contact agents, phone or airport, and HUACA when necessary.

Kacee

Me either, but there there is apparently still some number of agents out there who are not handling these correctly.

Again, it's the UA "bad apple" problem.