Upgrade priority on UX when flight is full?
#16
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: SFO/SJC
Programs: UA Silver, Marriott Gold, Hilton Gold
Posts: 14,878
Right.
OP -- you're making a lot of assumptions that may not be well-founded. For one thing, "Full" doesn't necessarily mean full. In a 12-seat cabin, it will never show 11 + 1 blocked, 10 + 2 blocked, etc. It just shows "Full." So there's actually no way to know what the load up front really is when this occurs.
Second -- the fact that they're asking about a bump amount doesn't mean they're oversold. It probably means they're overbooked, but that's different. A flight isn't oversold until more customers have checked in than they have seats. Most overbookings resolve themselves before the gate.
Third -- they will absolutely upgrade passengers before denying boarding. They'll upgrade them in priority order by status. The fact that they didn't upgrade anyone all week likely means that you're nowhere near the top of the upgrade list as a Gold -- sorry to be the bearer of bad news -- but they're not going to give anybody a voucher to take a later flight when they have seats in F.
Finally -- if they are overbooked by one in Y, and they have an available F seat, they will absolutely sell that F seat. They would be happy to give someone a $400 travel voucher in order to accommodate someone paying a first-class fare.
Your thought process seems to be that they should clear these things up in advance by CPUing passengers. UA would rather wait until the gate to see how things sort out. Keep in mind, while you may be traveling nonstop, a lot of the other passengers on that flight will be connecting, and misconnects are common. They may well have sold 80 tickets to a 76-seat plane and still be able to seat everyone who shows up.
Hope this helps.
OP -- you're making a lot of assumptions that may not be well-founded. For one thing, "Full" doesn't necessarily mean full. In a 12-seat cabin, it will never show 11 + 1 blocked, 10 + 2 blocked, etc. It just shows "Full." So there's actually no way to know what the load up front really is when this occurs.
Second -- the fact that they're asking about a bump amount doesn't mean they're oversold. It probably means they're overbooked, but that's different. A flight isn't oversold until more customers have checked in than they have seats. Most overbookings resolve themselves before the gate.
Third -- they will absolutely upgrade passengers before denying boarding. They'll upgrade them in priority order by status. The fact that they didn't upgrade anyone all week likely means that you're nowhere near the top of the upgrade list as a Gold -- sorry to be the bearer of bad news -- but they're not going to give anybody a voucher to take a later flight when they have seats in F.
Finally -- if they are overbooked by one in Y, and they have an available F seat, they will absolutely sell that F seat. They would be happy to give someone a $400 travel voucher in order to accommodate someone paying a first-class fare.
Your thought process seems to be that they should clear these things up in advance by CPUing passengers. UA would rather wait until the gate to see how things sort out. Keep in mind, while you may be traveling nonstop, a lot of the other passengers on that flight will be connecting, and misconnects are common. They may well have sold 80 tickets to a 76-seat plane and still be able to seat everyone who shows up.
Hope this helps.
About uograding passengers before denying boarding - I’ve even been op-up’d before - both as an elite on UA prior to UDU starting, even as a silver, and after on an award ticket where I wasn’t eligible (I have a UA card, but it’s legacy so doesn’t have the award upgrade benefit). In fact, the latter situation happened in Dec. so absolutely they will do it. Even on long-hail. My wife loves the story of being on DXB-IAD (yeah, was a while ago) - at the gate, they called her up with a new BP and she was upset they changed her seat - until she actually looked at it and saw it was in Business. Other airlines do it too - a year or two ago I was on FRA-BLR around Xmas time and got what I considered a double-upgrade from Y to C. Was a great flight. And while these do happen - they are rare. More often what I see are flights where F starts empty - looks like a decent shot at CPU at booking - but then F fills up - either slowly over a few weeks or its mostly open one day, then full or close to it the next and goes out with 0 upgrades. That’s what’s supposed to happen - airlines try to match seats available to demand, and sell everyone of them. They aren’t putting extra F seats on planes specifically to give them away for free - they are trying to sell them. But demand fluxes, and they can’t always get it right - so they decide to give away what they can’t sell to elites. It’s a good - but you have to understand what it is there for, and you won’t be disappointed. I definitely appreciate an upgrade when it happens, and look at the lists, try to book flights that look better, etc. but I don’t see it as an entitlement - If I get one, great - if not, that’s great too (after all, I’ve already got what I paid for). Especially these days, it’s a good outlook to have, since there tend to be less of them, and I don’t get them as much (due to lower status, typically traveling in a party of 3 these days, etc.)
#17
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: TX
Programs: UA 1K
Posts: 728
Wow.. Lotta vitriol here.. Almost sorry for asking about this. Nobody's really explained the process, only launched attacks.
Fly a lot of regional during the week during off-peak hours and you'll see upgrades clear at the beginning of the CPU window. Hub to hub? Of course not.
Fly a lot of regional during the week during off-peak hours and you'll see upgrades clear at the beginning of the CPU window. Hub to hub? Of course not.
#18
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: WAS-ish
Programs: UA 1K-MM + UC, Marriott Plat, National Exec
Posts: 1,341
This sort of behavior -- abrupt jump from "1 + 1 blocked" in F to "Full" is completely consistent with at least three phenomena (see also jsloan's post above):
1. Several last-minute F purchases.
2. Several last-minute Y purchases (which overbook Y, and lead to the remaining F seats becoming blocked)
3. Several passengers biting on Y->F cash upgrades at checkin (since it sounds like this happened within 24 hours).
Also, since 5914 is now in flight... I notice that it actually went out with 3 empty seats in E+, and 4 upgrades total. Including "ZEL, D"... so maybe the OP ended up happier with the outcome?
1. Several last-minute F purchases.
2. Several last-minute Y purchases (which overbook Y, and lead to the remaining F seats becoming blocked)
3. Several passengers biting on Y->F cash upgrades at checkin (since it sounds like this happened within 24 hours).
Also, since 5914 is now in flight... I notice that it actually went out with 3 empty seats in E+, and 4 upgrades total. Including "ZEL, D"... so maybe the OP ended up happier with the outcome?