My experience this past weekend is that all worked as I expected. mrs. iapetus and I are both 1Ks. We flew nonstop LAX-ORD with the iapetus jrs. Hoping to maximize upgrade chances, I split the PNR ahead of time to have one of the kids on her reservation and one on mine. At ~T-96h she and my son cleared, while my daughter and I did not (the irony there is that mrs. iapetus is only 1K because I'm 1MM ... which does make me wonder how/why she got upgraded before me ... but I digress). mrs. iapetus and my son remained on the same PNR, and I checked them in together. When I checked my daughter and I in, our PNR was split again, but I was able to check us both in at the same time. She appeared and remained right below me on the upgrade list. (Despite it looking initially dicey, we actually all got the upgrade. :cool:)

On the way home yesterday, mrs. iapetus and my son had their PNR split for upgrade purposes when they were checked in. But I was able to check them in simultaneously. I had to check my daughter in separately from me. We remained together on the upgrade list, though none us cleared. At no point did I have any problems obtaining E+ seating for all of us. I can't say anything about whether baggage privileges were retained, as the two bags we checked were claimed by mrs. iapetus and me, but I see no reason why that wouldn't have translated, too.

In short, everything behaved as I would have wanted it to be. It was the same the last time we traveled as a family. The main pain was having to check in three times on the return (once for myself, once for mrs. iapetus and my son and once again for my daughter); and it would have been four times if mrs. iapetus and my son hadn't cleared prior to check-in on the outbound LAX-ORD. So, until I experience differently, I'd split our PNR in advance on our next trip together on UA.

This method does not work for me today. The website told me that there was no flights available. It was a "lie" because I chose to change IAD-SIN segment only in the reservation (and there are plenty of IAD-SFO and SFO-SIN flights). I will have to call 1K line to split the reservation. There are two 1Ks on the same reservation with GPUs supported upgrade requests.

Except when it doesn't work . . . split and designated spouse as companion, with child to fend for herself.

Instead, website split me and put them on a new PNR together, neither with my status benefits (BG2, no upgrade list)

To split or not to split - that's the question
 

On Sept 18th, I'll be flying on UA998 BRU-EWR with my +1, booked in fare class W with GPUs applied both for PP and Polaris. Obviously, they did not clear at T-48, but I noticed that one RN space opened up at T-48 and I decided to split our booking, so my +1 got the upgrade to PP - happy wife happy life. Polaris space is J6/C3/D2/P0 and PP space is O4/A3/R3 with RN going down to zero after my hopefully clever move to split up the booking. 1K Helpdesk told me that there are only three persons on the upgrade WL, so beside the two of us only one pax.
What do you think are our chance to get another PP upgrade or even better the two of us upgraded to Polaris ? Can't judge the availability of paid upgrades popping up just before TOD, maybe someone can. and another question came up after the move: as she is no longer in 'my' booking, her second free piece of luggage went away, I thought she would still inherit my 1K privs even after split up but that's seems to be the downside up this move, anything else ?

I don't know about chances.
Luggage you can get back at check-in, but you should get 3x70 so I doubt you'll have an issue.
If she' lost your 1K status, bigger issue will be her priority for PP>Polaris upgrade.

Her 2nd piece will come back once you upgrade to PP but only on that leg.

There's no point in asking the desk. They're not supposed to tell you, and even if they do, it doesn't matter what they say, because (a) sometimes they'll make it up, and (b) when they don't make it up, it's still subject to change at any point, because somebody could make a last-minute waitlist request that might trump yours.

The inventory has actually increased to J7 / O5. According to the flight status page -- which has started to get a little wonky, unfortunately, and can't necessarily be trusted 100% -- there are 7 J seats and 2 P+ seats available. That suggests that UA is willing to overbook P+ (which would be a good outcome for you), but it also means that the total inventory is about 9 seats.

I'd feel better about it if thunderstorms come through tomorrow and delay some connecting passengers, but they're not awful of getting into P+ at a minimum. I'd feel better about Polaris if there were P and PN space available, as then you'd know that there weren't any Global Services passengers on the waitlist ahead of you. And, of course, you have to hope that 7 people don't decide that the cash buy-up looks attractive. (That's the main reason that overselling P+ would be good for you -- they'd block seats in J for upgrades).

Good luck!

thx jsloan, I was lucky and got the Polaris upgrade at T-23, my +1 in PP desperately waiting for PN space opening up again ;-) Kidding, we will likely sit together in PP if can convince her seat neighbour to claim my Polaris seat.
So at the end splitting up at T-48 worked out as only one space was opened up in RN or PZ respectively. I think we wouldn't have cleared neither in PP nor Polaris due to this limitation and the fact that the space did not open up synchronously. Maybe this is not deep insight but it is my first deliberated split up of bookings, knowing that this is supposed to happen at T-24 anyway.
With no planned transcontinental flights till the end of the year I made perfect use of my GPUs, even including SFO travel.

I need to add that the united flight status page does not show any WL and confirmed upgrades even at T-22, making it difficult to assess upgrade chances.

At the end, my +1 cleared into Polaris at boarding time, and we managed to claim the middle twin seats. The United Status page showed 44 seats out which 48 were booked. Overbooking and 2 GPU cleared do not fit together.

Indeed, the flight status page is broken, which is obviously a real problem for trying to gauge this kind of thing. :( But I'm glad you both got upgraded. ^

Hello!

Just wanted to confirm my understanding of the PNR split ahead of an upcoming trip.

i am flying (1K) with a companion (a Silver) on the same PNR.

we are flying A>B>C (no MUA/GPU) then C>B>A in PP with a GPU waitlisted.

on the way there, B>C is CPU eligible, but if that doesn’t clear before check in time the only way to get the CPU would be to split the PNR?

If I split the PNR, will my companion (Silver) then be way below me on the upgrade list a week ahead of our return? I know the companion is meant to inherit my status, but wondering if their own status maybe impact that?

Basicially, the CPU on the way there would be nice but not at the cost of lowering their return upgrade chances into Polaris.

Any thoughts appreciated!

hagan73, I had a similar situation on my last trip where I decided to split up the booking at T-48h. My companion (without UA status) was listed right behind me. Our Polaris upgrades on the outbound cleared only because I decided to split the booking as United opened RN/PZ space very restrictively, meaning only one seat at a certain time, never two at a time. If you are a group of two and TOD is outside the 24h corridor(when spilit-up happens automatically) you would never get an upgrade automatically on a flight which is almost full in Polaris or PP. The downside of splitting is of course irrops and maybe baggage restrictions, not certain on last one, my companion had only a one bag allowance after split-up whereas I still had two.

Kind of confused about the companion status and what a phone agent told me. There are 4 of us on a domestic PNR, I'm the only one that isn't a GM (general member), phone agent said at check in if I decline to split I will still be on the upgrade list but none of the companions will make the list, which is fine. Agent also said the gate agent should be able to process me on an upgrade without splitting.

However the wiki says that since there is more than 1 non member that none of us will make the list unless I split.

My concerns are:

• only 27/48 booked in F right now, if I don't split I won't clear before T-24 while others may
• If we do split the companions will lose the baggage benefits, we already have E+ selected.

So will I make the upgrade list without splitting?

Seems like this post answered most of my questions:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/31342674-post468.html

When to split PNRs
 

Hi all, I see a lot of references to T-96 in these threads. What is the signficance of T-96? I'm 1K and the husband is Silver. We are flying IAH-FRA on Christmas day and are trying to upgrade using pluspoints.

I'm inclined to split the PNR so that at least one of us gets upgraded. It seems many people have had the experience where the lower status traveller retains the waitlist ranking of the higher status traveller pre PNR split. Does retaining the waitlist ranking of the higher ranked traveller depend on when the PNR is split? My hesitation to split the PNR too early would be if doing so would cause the husband's upgrade request to be with the Silvers rather than with the 1Ks.

Thanks.

That is when 1Ks become eligible for CPUs -- 1Ks (and a companion on the same PNR) might clear that earlier, that is more the exception nowadays.