uncleb

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For sure. And there certainly are not travelers who paid a coach fare, since it is not possible to jump two classes, regardless of status.

Well, yes and no. I would imagine that part of United calculus is that if you were buying as many high-value tickets on United, you would have the status and thus the access to the cabin, so their "high value" fliers are worth more in a straight dollars calculation.

I actually just had something like this happen to me, booked EWR-HKG through ORD in a flexible business fare on a 3 class 777, and had access to the GF seats during seat selection. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised.

jsloan

UA is now a two-class airline. You can absolutely sit in the eight front seats on an upgraded coach ticket, if you're 1K or GS. I've done so on a recent trip to NRT. But your chances of getting upgrade space on SFO-IAD, especially as a 1K, is essentially nil.

uncleb

WOW! That I find a little surprising. I get that they are calling it two classes, but one would still be "jumped" to the front 8 seats from Biz, so I am surprised that they would also "jump" from coach as well, regardless of status. I mostly book in Biz anyway, as most of my rev flights are for business travel, so likely won't have the opportunity to experience of getting all the way up from coach, but glad it worked!

cranky1K

IAH-OIL-TRASH

dkc192

This. To be explicit, in OP's case, all 8 former GF and 40 former BF seats are considered part of the "FIRST" cabin on this aircraft/flight, as SFO-IAD is not a PS or international market where the forward cabin would be marketed as "BUSINESS". There is no UA flight that offers both anymore.

Think of the former GF seats as merely a form of "preferred" seating in the F/J cabin, somewhat like E+ is to E-. Like others, I think it makes perfect sense for UA to restrict access to these preferred GF seats to its top FFs.

If there's an a/c swap from Polaris back to IPTE, the system *should* auto-reassign GF seats to GS and 1K and restrict subsequent GF seat selection (in the event of any pax seeking to manually make changes after the swap) to GS and 1K, or at least that should be UA's intention. Now, who knows whether either of those happens in practice, particularly (and more importantly) the correct initial auto-reassignment.

wxguy

It worked. I booked a (former) 3-class IPTE 772 and self-assigned 1A. Three days out it swapped for a Polarisized 772, and was automatically assigned 1A. A day later, it reverted to an IPTE, and was re-reassigned to 1A.

wxguy

A few weeks ago I needed to book an SFO-BOS. No PN (or PZ) available all day. But there was an excellent coach fare SFO-IAD-BOS with PZ; the SFO-IAD on a 3-class IPTE and I was able to select 1A. Rare, but it can happen.

nomad420

I think what climmy (and perhaps a few others) are most bothered by are the few GS and 1K that bought coach and get CPU'ed to GF seats when they paid full fare F and didn't even have that as an option. I get the anger/disappointment there. Personally, and I am 1K, I would think they probably have should have made that an option for full fare F ticket purchases but they didn't. I guess as the saying goes, you pay your money and you take your choice. In this case it sounds like some are jumping away from UA to what they perceive is a better product.

jsloan

On SFO-WAS, the route in question, full-fare F is $5486 RT (for the loosest definition of full fare -- JUA fare basis) or $19640 RT (for the actual F/J fare bases). I'm willing to wager that full-fare has nothing to do with it. (The cheapest discount F for some January dates I pulled up Is $1008 RT, by comparison).

There are very few, if any, CPUs on these routes. As you well know, it's extremely difficult even to clear an instrument on them. That point has been made repeatedly. The vast majority of people sitting in the front eight seats also bought first-class tickets, and are 1K/GS. End of story.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

This. The hysteria of GSs or 1Ks using CPU/instrument/mileage to fill the 8 seats is a fairy tale. The issue non-GSs or 1Ks really have is that they aren't able to select the seats because they are not GS or 1Ks.

nomad420

Preaching to the choir with no argument from me on any of this. The "very few" , and I agree, that got CPU'ed to GF seats well great for them. It is what it is.

physioprof

I think UA also doesn't want to have to deal with people complaining "I bought a FULL-FARE F ticket because you said I could choose a former GF seat, and now the plane has been swapped and there are no former GF seats anymore!!"

jsloan

Indeed, which is why they stopped selling the Global First cabin in the first place. They stopped treating it as a separate cabin entirely In order to repurpose the O and A booking codes for P+, but you haven't reliably been able to purchase a Polaris First ticket in a long time, specifically because of this.

bluepig1

As a GS, pretty happy with booking full fare Z and selecting seat 1H on ORD-NRT in two weeks.