Waitlisted - Checking in online, does it help?
 

I'm currently showing waitlisted. If I check in online, does that help my chances for an upgrade or no?

Thanks in advance!

It is the third tie-breaker, after MP status and fare paid.

Here is the existing thread for additional information:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...d-upgrade.html

As mentioned, checking in first may put you above others on the airport waitlist. However, I have been upgraded between check in time and at the gate (at least once each at 24 hours, 12 hours and 4 hours prior to departure) before on the airport list when I wasn't yet checked in. If you were to be checked in and your upgrade were to clear at that kind of window, but you were checked in, it seems based on others' experience on this board that you would have to be un-checked in, then rechecked in to properly get your upgrade, with airport staff possibly being unaware you recieved the upgrade. So the jury may still be out on which is the better option.

I think the optimal strategy is:

1) Check in online ASAP (24 hours before the earliest departing segment)
2) Print out an online boarding pass (or save a copy of your mobile boarding pass)
3a) Subscribe to EasyUpdate and you'll probably be told when your upgrade clears; also,
3b) Periodically try to check in. If you get a message that says The itinerary your PNR has generated an error., you're golden!
4) If your upgrade cleared (3a or 3b), go to the airport early -- you're going to need some extra time with an agent. If your upgrade didn't clear, skip ahead to step 6.
5a) Get to the front of the ticketing/checkin line (this is slow). Then convince a ticketing/checkin agent to offload you from the flight and put you back on the flight. (Depending on how sure of yourself you sound, this can be very easy or painfully difficult. The staff at SEA understand what I mean when I say "I need an agent's help checking in, my upgrade cleared after checkin and I need to be offloaded and re-loaded", but putting that many action items in a sentence may confuse the heck out of an overwhelmed agent at some airports.); if this fails or the line is too long,
5b) Go through security with the online boarding pass you carefully saved at step 2). Then convince any gate agent (not necessarily the one for your flight) to offload you and re-check you in; your upgrade is now cleared. Note that you *may* still need an agent's help to select a seat or change seat assignments -- in my experience sometimes the EasyCheckIn machines now work, and sometimes they don't.
6) Upgrade didn't clear? Wait it out at the gate with your un-upgraded boarding pass like everyone else :)

Note that the optimal strategy is slow (there's a step where you might want to talk to an agent before the flight's counter is open) and risky if you don't have a printer handy: it's possible to be checked in, unable to cancel your checkin, and unable to get a boarding pass without waiting in line and talking to an agent before security.

+1

This happened to me today @ RDU. I got the message that IM had cleared my upgrade @ 5am, for a 9am departure. When I got to the airport at 7:15, the agent printed me a BP for E+, even though my upgrade had already cleared. Luckily I noticed before I wandered away. Hopefully it would have beeped at the gate if I had not known about the u/g..

Great description mherdeg ^ and if I may add, where you say "convince any gate agent", I'd like to add that if it is an airport that has a dedicated customer service location (i.e. SFO near gate 80-82 or IAD which has 2 [or 3?]), you can also try there as the folks that work the customer service counters are generally gate agents as well and can do the same thing (the customer service folks at SFO were able to do just what you described for me in less than 3 minutes)

I just want to add to be weary of this step above actually working. For me, Easyupdate has been very unreliable in the past few months about actually sending a message when my upgrade has cleared. I'd say well less than 50%. So if you don't get a message, don't be surprised.

i've had that happen several times too. Easyupdate e-mailed me with the upgrade, the gate agent said i was upgraded, printed me a BP for E+, but BP for F would be issued at the gate; and they were.