vhuang

I am booked and ticketed in Y SFO-FRA. Last week there were upgrades available and I used 15,000 miles to move into Polaris and select a seat. This morning I looked and all was well. A bit later I looked again and found myself in economy Y with no seat assignment.

I chatted with the agent via text and she said the "United System" cancelled my upgrade.

There are no more Polaris upgrades available. Expert search shows J6, ZN0, PN0, PZ0, O7, ON7.

Question: 1) Why did this happen? 2) Why wasn't I downgraded to one of the available PP seats and placed on the Polaris waitlist?

How can I get my miles back quickly to get the confirmed PP upgrade and Polaris waitlist?

fumje

Just to be sure, you did have the reservation status showing fully confirmed in Polaris after applying the 15k miles, correct? From what I understand based on this post and your previous ones in the other upgrades thread, you should not accept a downgrade back to Y or going back on the waitlist. You properly confirmed an upgrade, and they had a computer problem on their side, so they need to fix it and put you back in J. It will be best if you have a screenshot of the confirmed upgrade, but even if not there's no reason to accept this.

You might try twitter to see if they understand and will fix it. State that you confirmed an upgrade last week, and it disappeared this week, and you would like them to restore the upgrade. If that doesn't work — unfortunately phone wait times may be terrible currently, but I think calling is the most likely route to satisfaction.

Kacee

Call UA right away and ask to be put back in J. Be polite but firm. A supervisor will likely have to open inventory for you.

vhuang

Yes. I had a confirmed upgrade and a seat assignment. It was there for days. I think I still may have the screen open on my laptop. So I'll grab a screenshot if possible. Nope: The inactivity timer got me. But it was there from Thursday until Monday morning.

threecap

You should have received an email confirmation, which should suffice as proof.

fumje

Then as long as it's still J1 or higher, there's certainly no reason to accept anything other than being put back. They should be able to see in their logs the confirmed upgrade, so it's not the end of the world without a screenshot.

Good luck for a speedy resolution!

vhuang

SIGH. Will do this as soon as I can spend the time on hold.

escapefromphl

if you get serious push back, probably easier to hang up call again.

vhuang

Got through to United (wait time wasn't *that* bad). The agent got the customer service manager involved who was able to reinstate my upgrade. In all, it took 30 minutes.

They blamed the travel agency, CWT SATO for touching my reservation (even though nothing was changed). Apparently, they can kick out an upgrade even if they make no changes to an issued ticket. Hopefully it won't happen again, they said if it did, I'd have to waitlist.

dmurphynj

Ahh - the fact that you're traveling on government business changes things altogether. The gov't does have rules around upgrades and things so it's possible the travel agency was abiding by those. I'm not intimately familiar with those rules but I do know it can be a bit tricky to navigate ...

vhuang

Pretty sure that I followed the rules. Upgrade was using my personal miles and there was no change in the fare/booking class of the original ticket. I think what the agency did was put the follow-on ticket, on a different airline and ticket stock, on the United reservation perhaps for clarity(?). But touching the UA reservation kicks out the upgrade.

Hopefully, they keep their paws off it it.

drewguy

Yes, no prohibition on using personal miles or plus points or money to upgrade a government ticket.

I did once clear an upgrade early enough that I got questions from the approvers as to why I was in J - explained I had used my own miles to upgrade and it had cleared before departure - those were the days!

Lux Flyer

Yes they can mess it up. When you upgrade it changes the booking code to PZ and revalidates the ticket. Changing the booking code likely generates a message to the travel agencies ticket (acting like a schedule change). If the person understanding this doesn't know what it is, they either see it booked in a code that isn't valid for the fare and/or doesn't match the ticket (because a revalidated change to the ticket doesn't show in agency systems only in UA's) and they can still cancel the new upgraded space and book it back into Y to match what they think the booking code should be.

escapefromphl

I would be inclined to contact them and try to figure out why it happened, as it may happen again. They should really be familiar with customer upgrading using miles.

halls120

I'm not buying UA's pointing the finger at CWT SATO. I flew on government orders from 1991 until this year, and I upgraded dozens and dozens of time with my own money and miles, and not once did CWT SATO "touching" the reservation result in losing my upgrade. On my last trip, after SATO ticketed my reservation, I paid DL for 2 upgrades, and the next day CWT sent me a revised copy of my itinerary with my upgrades and seat assignment.