kevflyer

I have a HNL-SFO-YVR ticket booked with AC. Used 20 PP to clear HNL-SFO on UA F. So far so good. Then I made the mistake of calling AC to select a seat on SFO-YVR as AC site didn't give me the option to. That's when the AC agent, for whatever reason, put me on hold, decided to called UA where a UA 'team lead' told her it was a mistake that I got upgraded as I was not on a 016 ticket, and I would have been 'denied upgrade' at the gate. So the UA person removed my upgrade and put refunded the PP to my account. (This interaction was apparently not logged on the UA side - at least 1K agents cannot see it. I got this info from AC)

So now I'm downgraded to Y, and the flight is in 12 hours, and looking at the load there is no way I can get my upgrade back even if I use my PP. Is there anything that can be done here to salvage this?

WineCountryUA

That does not make sense
Wonder if the AC agent re-sync'ed the ticket or did something else to blow away the upgrade.

There was zero reason , doing a seat assignment by AC agent on an AC ticket for an AC operated flight for the AC agent to contact UA
My speculation
Something when wrong by AC and when they then called UA (if they actually did do that) to restore the upgrade there was no PZ space and it could not be restored.


Likely not, you can reapply. You can ask an UA agent to walk thru the ticket history to get their explanation

But bottom line, what you did was fine and you are, IMO, getting FUD

stevenshev

I'd call UA and ask them why you're in coach when you had already applied PP and were confirmed in business. And when they can't answer that coherently, say I need you to put me back in business. Let's get a supervisor involved if necessary, but I did not authorize any downgrade.

rankourabu

No, thats nonsense, I just upgraded using PP on LHR-EWR on an AC ticket, AC codeshare.

My speculation: Typical AC incompetence, They broke it, tried (or not) to call UA to fix it, which they couldnt.

cfischer

... should not have called AC. That said, they messed up big time and probably never even called UA.

Will UA help you? Possibly. Call again, they will be able to see you were in J and then 'something happened'. They may claim that AC messed it up and that's it, but they might elect to help you. Are there still seats available? Have you tried social media channels for UA?

FLYMSY

I give up. What’s “ getting FUD”?

kevflyer

I called UA and the only thing they could do was to re-apply my PP, which won't help my chances now.
The only thing UA could see was that I had PP redeposited, but not that I was ever upgraded (which also doesn't make sense)

Kacee

All I can say is "ouch." I agree this sounds like 100% an AC screw-up. I'd maintain hope that an accommodating UA agent will intervene and reinstate the upgrade (will require supervisor approval).
I get a text and an email when my PP clear.

WineCountryUA

Throw out a lot of bogus information to redirect blame / concerns elsewhere and undermine your previous understanding

SS255

This doesn’t pass the sniff test. Once PP’s clear, they are considered used cannot be re-deposited for that flight. It sounds like someone manually removed them. You should have an email and maybe a text from UA confirming the upgrade. Find that email, and insist that they restore the cleared upgrade. Hopefully you will get an empowered agent.

bmwe92fan

This times 10 -- somehow AC messed up your upgrade -- just call UA and ask what happened -- reference your email and text from the PP upgrade (you have that - right?) and then -- Don't ask them to upgrade you -- ask them to fix it as obviously there must be a system error since you can prove you were upgraded....

RobOnLI

Only way this makes sense is if AC re-issued the ticket. If the ticket was re-issued UA isn't looking at the old ticket with the history of what happened to the HNL-SFO leg. So all they see is you're currently booked in coach and your account has 20 PPs redeposited. Why would a ticket be re-issued just for a seat assignment? Even the most basic competent AC agent can do this without re-issuing a ticket? I do think it's possible the AC ticket was out of sync with the upgraded UA segment and AC tried to "fix" that and blundered the whole thing. You would not have been 'denied upgrade' at the gate in HNL and the UA supervisor (if AC really did call them) was really full of it.

No way for UA to fix this now unless you can find irrefutable proof of your upgraded segment via email with the correct ticket number that flight was on. But since it's an AC ticket UA is going to tell you to call AC to have it "fixed". I think you're totally screwed in a catch 22 situation of the airlines pointing their fingers at each other.

As is always sage advice on these boards...never, ever call a partner airline with any questions about a ticket unless it's a dire emergency. In most cases it's "don't call the partner when booked on a UA ticket". In this case you shouldn't have called the partner for a UA flight on a partner ticket. Sorry OP.

-RM

JimInOhio

But it appears the OP called AC about the AC flight, not the UA flight.

kevflyer

Yes I have text and email from UA showing the PP cleared. HNL UC agent doesn't see it being cleared at all (but was able to see 20 PP redeemed and then refunded), so this kind of confirms the theory that AC reissued the 014 ticket (a few hours ago a UA supervisor said my PNR had no ticket number attached to it and I had to give him the 014 ticket number. I haven't been able to check if it's different than before though). But again UC agent is powerless to do anything. My last chance is the gate agent

Yes that's correct. All I wanted was to get a seat on the AC flight. When AC agent tried to tell me something didn't look right with the UA upgrade, I told her not to touch the ticket but she insisted on having it 'checked'. I should have known better and just hung up.

MBS MillionMiler

Since your profile says you're a 1K, send screenshots and e-mails of upgrades and PP deductions/refunds attached to an email to 1K Voice, demanding that your rightful upgrade is returned, be firm, succinct, but polite. If that doesn't work, I've had great success with other issues writing the CEO's office, Scott dot Kerby at United.