In my very limited experience watching just a few Asian destinations, I did not see any surge in "O" (XC) ot "I" (NC) inventory in the last two weeks. It went from 'normal', I4 say on an initial allocation of SFO-HKG, and I9 for SFO-NRT, for flights in Q4, 2003 and Q1, 2004, to complete zeroes. Obviously I have no insight into how waitlisted upgrades cleared this past week but I seriously doubt that all of a sudden 10 waitlisted upgrades for a flight next April all of a sudden cleared? In fact, a review of the seatmaps still show zero seats assigned even though the upgrade inventory went from "9" to "0".

Still checking and find I0 O0 on all international flights from sfo through Mar04.

I'm still waiting on a few Int'l upgrades in the November timeframe. Nothing cleared around 7/31 (at least for me).

I would like to know if anyone has been able to find any C class upgrade or award space (I or O)to any international destination on any date checking after August 1, 2003. I know that flights were available checking before that date.

I have just spent 30 minutes randomly searching for such availability on SYD-LAX and SFO-CDG bwtween early october and march but found zero!!.
The cynical amongst us would note that this has occurred at a similar time to when we would be wanting to use the new SWUs.
At least, we should be able to use them in the same way as on Lufthansa - for upgrades at the gate if there are seats available .
Ozflier

Before anyone gets too worked up I'd suggest calling UA to verify upgrade or award availability. Much has been posted about how unreliable the website can be with regards to Saver and upgrade inventory.

I called reservations and they have the same problem - no I or O inventory. There is economy saver award available. I also found saver first SFO-LHR but no I or O on the same flights. I don't think there is any I or O inventory on any international flight at this time.

Transpac,do you think that the upgrade waitlist is linked to the malfunctioning website program or is there another system that releases the seating which may be working better ? I have 12 flights waitlisted over 5 intineraries (either for y to c or d to f),and it does get a little tiresome calling UA Reservations to ask them to manually check availability .
Ozflier

TonySCV -- I don't think you're entirely correct on this at least as far as Asia flights go. I think transpac is basically right and there was no real spike in inventory. I've been VERY CAREFULLY watching inventory for ORD-HKG, SFO-HKG, all USA-NRT flights and NRT-BKK/SIN for the rest of the year. Through most of July, they seemed to be following normal numbers... Weekend flights were often zeroed for upgrade and award, midweek seats ranged anywhere from a couple of seats to O9 I9. As usual, certain flights were much worse than others following the normal inventory patterns (UA805/806 SFO-HKG, NRT-BKK...)

Then, last weekend (July 26), they pulled all upgrade availability to HKG for the rest of '03 (both from SFO and ORD -- there was still a random seat or two from NRT-HKG left but that was it)... This was on many flights where exactly 24 hours before I saw O9 I9. As of this weekend, all NRT flights seem to have been pulled as well.

My guess is that they're doing some reprogramming and playing around w/inventory a bit. We'll probably see the normal numbers back soon. As for calling UA, I've checked with 1K int'l res and what we're seeing online seems to match what they see in their systems.

I don't know the SYD flights as well and not real clear on what was happening there as I found XC seats for Dec/Jan which seems highly unusual. Unfortunately family commitments prevent me from going then http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif and I'm sure that when I do want to go in the late winter, there'll be nothing.

[This message has been edited by kv99 (edited 08-04-2003).]

In this case, I don't think it's a website problem. I've talked with UA reservations and they are showing the same lack of availability we're seeing. (On the sampling of flights I was enquiring about.)

It is worthwhile when you're on the phone to mention to them that you've been searching extensively (and detail how extensively) and found nothing. Hopefully that will cause someone to act on why all of the upgrade/award availability has vanished on certain routes.

Of course, part of me is finding it very hard to believe that UA reservations / inventory management isn't at least peripherally aware of this by now, being that they're plowing through this every day, whereas we're only doing it as we have time. This is one of those things that really starts to stick out the more you search.

- Tony

[This message has been edited by TonySCV (edited 08-04-2003).]

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/eek.gif Capacity Control is one thing, this is certainly strange. I hope that it is some sort of glitch on UA's side.

Then through either careful planning or dumb luck, got my Sept SIN trip ticketed and upgraded on Monday 7/25. For another couple still in the planning stages, I guess its SOL.

Found zero availability to Germany or Belgium for upgrade or miles redemption thru year end.Now even though my profile is set at expert I cannot get any fare availability on the flights and cannot get any E+ seating to show when trying to select seats...UA.com
doesn't seem to be able to answer me as to why..

Any suggestions???

See the links below for more info on this problem:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum50/HTML/021076.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum50/HTML/021188.html


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gfowler-ord-1k
Living in SIN

After a frustrating afternoon of trying to find some, ANY, upgradeable or C class award tix, I finally broke down and called the 1K desk......

After the CSR finished searching all of February/March 04 for inventory ORD-LHR, she finally agreed with me that something was wrong, and put me on hold while she spoke with her supervisor....

A few minutes later, she came back on to let me know that "they are aware of the problem and its located in inventory management"...

No idea when it gets fixed, but she did suggest that calls/faxes to the 1K numbers wouldn't hurt them fix it sooner rather than later.......

Good luck to us!! Best wishes, Dave