EmailKid

This.

I watched my IAD-DUB-EWR (part of a longer journey) like a hawk, sometimes 4 times a day, yet NEVER saw anything but R0.

Yet, flew in Biz both ways, alas due to MX a day later on outbound via EWR, but that's a tale of UA mechanicals

But both legs were upgraded weeks ahead of flight even though I never saw any R space available. And I check it via ual.com, so theoretically in real time.

Gavin Peters

Yet, searching by upgrades finding the same BOS-UA749-IAH-UA1249-SJC was not showing the second segment as upgradable.

But, I called in, and the upgrade was processed manually. Very weird! Thanks for the quick replies everyone; I thought it should be segment by segment and journey availability was not used for upgrades.

Does anyone know why the search by upgrades option didn't show UA1249 as upgradeable? Was it because there was already a waitlist on that flight (if so, that's an awesome change to their system...)

mahasamatman

When you search an itinerary with multiple segments, the system treats all segments as if they have the minimum R from all segments. So even an R9 segment will show R0 if combined with another segment that is R0. If you want an accurate picture of R inventory, you must search segment-by-segment.

Gavin Peters

Searching by upgrades frequently shows only one segment as upgradeable. How does that happen, then?

mahasamatman

I don't know. I don't use that feature because it's unreliable and provides less information than expert mode.

Gavin Peters

Can you elaborate on how it's unreliable? I certainly did segment by segment searches, and also a journey search using the upgrades feature; I would love to know more about how the journey search with the upgrades feature misses individual segments if you know more about that.

Thanks!

docbert

That's how it used to work, but they fixed it some time ago. It now correctly shows R availability for each leg. eg :

Kacee

Wish this were true, but the married segment issue is still very much alive, and accurate searching for R inventory still requires searching segment by segment.

On the example you posted, the segments are separately fared (a K and a G), which eliminates the married segment issue.

kb1992

This is only the case if search results in different booking classes i.e. K and G in your example.

If the search yields same booking class i.e. T for both segments, then minimum amount of R for both segments is shown.

Neil35

This is a very good point, indeed something that I never thought about before.

Bonehead

Just ran in to this with my SO's reservation. Used a GPU LHR>>IAH>>DEN a couple weeks ago when the IAH>>DEN leg was R0 (LHR>>IAH leg was R2, so it cleared immediately).

IAH>>DEN is now R3. Called, and the agent contacted her supervisor, who refused to clear the leg saying that "the system would take care of it". Aargh.

Now if the responses from the agents were consistent it would be one thing, but the fact that so many on this thread report that they were cleared upon calling is what galls me. If only LHR>>IAH wasn't R0 the "pull and reapply the GPU" trick would work.

Add me to the list of those who have been bitten by the debacle that is the UA IT infrastructure (or programming ineptitude). Note that I'm assuming it's a limitation or ineptitude; if this is intentional it's a huge slap in the face, as others have noted.

UA-NYC

HUACA of course - I bet it won't take too long for you to get a more customer-focused agent

Bonehead

Well maybe, but what worries me is that two agents both expressed surprise that they couldn't apply the upgrade after agreeing with me that it was warranted (the first agent had transferred me to International, who also tried before contacting a supervisor). The front-line agents were in fact on my side.

Probably should have included that info in the OP, eh? Hope this isn't some new programming limitation that has been put in place such that the agents can't process these types of upgrades anymore, although if it is I suppose that would take care of the inconsistency issue.

I wonder what an agent would say if I tried to apply an RPU to that last segment, since a GPU is already active on it...

UPDATE: The upgrade went through. I don't know if an agent/supervisor pushed it through after I whined about the system being broken (hey, this was for my SO, not for me, remember) or if the system did in fact process the upgrade in a relatively timely manner (although I'm actually not sure when R became >0). It would be interesting to see if perhaps there are fewer instances of unrequited RPUs/GPUs going forward, which would suggest that they have finally at least tried to fix the process. Even if they have, however, the lag time is not good because others could snatch the R space in the interim.

Kacee

They ran a sweep and you cleared.

Bonehead

I noted in my OP that the LHR>>IAH leg was R0, so that wasn't an option. As I'm sure you're aware, there would be no guarantee that the R inventory would be returned if the GPU was pulled.