akhibhag

This happened to me on a trip to Frankfurt last month. I called to clear outbound which had J8 and the agent manually cleared it. On the return segment, I called (it was J3) and the agent refused to manually clear ( not because i may not have been on the top of the list) because they already cleared one segment manually.

limey1K

I haven’t seen a GS agent at the gate this year. I’ve had misconnects in ORD, EWR and IAH. Crickets.

Companion upgrades and now GS upgrades being limited to one direction may be the death knell for me.

I sponsored 8 domestic PP upgrades this week for employees, 6 1K and 2 GS, none hub to hub and zero cleared.

DEN-DFW this week had 76 on the upgrade list, A320. GA called needing more time, military and then 1K. Giant swarm of people boarded and I asked her why she skipped GS and she said “I called for GS and 1K together”. Wrong order regardless but she skipped GS. I was 3A but my bag ended up over the first row of Y

bmwe92fan

I just upgraded my wife returning with me from Japan in July -- the agent made it a point to go and look how my wife got to Japan because if I had forced an upgrade to Japan she would not be allowed to open up space on the return -- fortunately she flew NH so she cheerfully forced open J space for me....

jp12687

The only place i have consistently seen a GS agent is at LGA. I am 5/5 for having an agent waiting for me at departure this year

HNLbasedFlyer

Me too - although I had only 1 potential misconnect at SFO and they held the plane to HNL via connection saver (not just for me - a lot of us). But reading this nobody met me at the gate thing had me wondering who these people are meeting people at the gate - didn't even know it was a thing.

kb1992

You must have really bad luck this year.

I sponsored 9 international and domestic upgrades, most of them have no status, mostly EWR/IAD-SFO, all cleared.

Of course, I selected flights carefully.

On nearly all my own flights, domestic and international, the purser came to my seat, greeted me and thanked me for being a GS member.

greenpau

So I learned a lot this week when trying to change a ticket. On my original paid J round trip, I had opened up a companion Saver Biz/IN seat in one direction. I subsequently needed to change the outbound due to work commitments, and the agent (after putting me on hold forever) came back and told me she couldn’t change my companion without charging an additional 100,000 miles for the segment, because “the rules clearly state only one exception is to be granted for the LIFETIME of the PNR - you already had one exception for the original outbound flight, and that’s it”. She was reading from a Reservation Agent intranet platform called Wingtips, and told me that they had recently been force trained on the GS “Exception Rules” and parameters.

She refused to make the change without the add collect of miles, and I tried a HUACA. Next agent said that the prior agent had added lots of remarks to the reservation record, and entered a warning to other agents saying she has “clearly advised the member of the exception rules”. The next agent said that the rules are indeed confusing, but because she had changed my ticket and now I could not be changed back to the original flight, she would go ahead and change my companion with no add collect.

Ultimately, the one exception for the life of the PNR was another new one to me. It makes little sense when they tell you that you must fly with the companion to which the exception was granted, then introduce this. They are clearly cracking down further on rules, are encouraging agents to be strict, and some agents are taking great joy at being sticklers.

GS as a program is in an interesting spot. The ground service has really shifted in quality. IRROPS handling has become almost non-existent. Sometimes there is a smiling agent at the gate, but if it’s delayed longer than 10 minutes they head off to their next assignment and leave you with a rolling delay. Reservations Line is usually good, but they are much less flexible and helpful than in the past. The exception rules are getting so tight to the point of being both confusing and not as useful. 1K also gets pre-board and meal choice, and shortly that will be irrelevant with pre-order being rolled out to all flights. I’m 25% success rate this year in sponsoring others for upgrades with PP.

Big question is whether it’s still worth the dollar stretch / UA metal loyalty versus using a mix of UA and other carriers when almost all my travel is paid F/J anyway - against a backdrop of much higher fares and mediocre service. The value equation seems less obvious at the moment.

bmwe92fan

UA is devaluing GS as rapidly as any other level -- for the first time in ~10 years when I called GS line in middle of a non-crisis day I was asked to choose a call back number.... Even when I booked two one ways the GS agents are looking to take away our "unpublished" benefits -- if they take away upgrades on award tickets I am done with UA instantly.... When we can fly ANA one way for 80k miles and get "the room" -- or fly UA product for that I might have to connect from NYC for 175k -- duh.... I checked today how many saver J awards to Tokyo in next few months -- I saw three days... NH has amazing availability -- I think I will just go for miles now....

greenpau

Same! I just picked up NH F with lots of availability, connecting through to BKK.

I will also say with overall redemption rates rising fast, even at Saver level, agree the program overall is shifting.

Gberg

Just had a situation where I wait listed PP for a friend and UA coded it as PZ - not PN (I am not traveling on the flight). Never had seen that before so assumed it was a glitch, tried again, and PZ again. Called in, was told it’s supposed to be PZ…(never have heard that before…). Has this happened to anyone else recently? Was PN when I did it last month.

PanAmWT

I just booked my son a XN+PP upgraded a few minutes ago. There were PN7 PZ3 in a near empty TPE-SFO flight in early June. Your post prompted me to go back to look, and it was PN. I hope your case is just a fluke. Otherwise, it would be really bad.

You mentioned you waitlisted PP for a friend. So was it a waitlist or was it confirmed when you saw the PZ code?

manstein58

Sorry but can you explain the significance of this change if true? TIA

Kleinnaf

I can confirm the same.
flight today, sponsored using GS points
Passenger has no status
​​​​​​#14 and waitlted for PZ (confirmed over the phone)


I was hoping it's a glitch so removed and reapplied but still showed PZ.


However it's worth noting last month I had the same thing happen when with GS member and GS points was showing wait-list to pz, so I removed and reapplied twice, and then it showed me at top of the list.

fumje

It would mean GS-sponsored non-GS friends/family/etc don't get to access PN and/or don't get as much priority on the waitlist. The waitlist order goes PN sorted by status, then PZ sorted by status. So instead of getting to jump 1K, they would be farther down.

manstein58

Thank you