Tomb1K

Thank you for that update. Would you happen to know if it is scheduled to do another IAD-FRA-IAD round trip on 11/22?

I booked 953 FRA-IAD 11/23 long time ago, expecting it to be the new business class. I cannot change my travel date, but if it's going to be an old 767 I would rather choose a different route using 777 equip.

Thanks!
TomB

C-5Crewdog

That's the plan. Again - remember EVERYTHING is subject to change.

gfowler-ord-1k

Today I fly UA950 (ORD-IAD, current config 3 class 763) in F. I am going a day early so that a flight delay will not cause me to miss the inaugural flight. Too much time, money and effort by myself and UA has gone into planning this trip to take that risk. As djknif mentioned above, UA has been fantastic in making arrangements for those of us on the inaugural.

I am writing this from a "Fantastic Suite" in W Chicago City Center. I share a condo with a friend in Chicago but my partner and our dog were visiting and it was too crowded. The 65lb dog can somehow occupy a whole king sized bed. We wanted to get away and have some privacy last night. The last few days have been quite hectic. In addition to some medical and other personal business I had to take care of, the last minute preparations have taken lots of time. For example, to save time the custom printed polo shirt that I had made for the inaugural flight was delivered by the manufacturer to the IAD station operations manager. Because of some reasons that I will explain in my next posting I need to wear the shirt at ORD check-in today. UA flew the shirt Friday afternoon to ORD where I picked it up.

There are another 44 boxes of the custom printed m&ms on the way to IAD. They are supposed to be delivered just a couple hours before the flight. I decided that the original 44 would probably not be enough. Besides the IAD station operations manager loves chocolate had threaten to eat most of the ones that were sitting in her office . If the new shipment does not make it in time I will ration the original ones and make do.

boeingair

^ have fun on the flights! Very much looking forward to your reports--I'm sure there will be more detail involved than any of us will know what to do with.

Tomb1K

That's great news for me -- understanding that plans can change, of course.

Thanks a lot.

TomB

Christofu

Bonne journee, Gfowler... thanks for keeping us all informed and entertained!

ironmanjt

Well guess who's not going?

Just called to ticket and was told "oh, the robot cancelled your reservation." They claim since I had IAD-LHR booked Tuesday, I couldn't book IAD-FRA on Monday - so it was cancelled. As posted above, it's now F0 C0, so "there's absolutely nothing we can do for you."

I even asked when I put this on hold "but won't it be considered duplicate" and was told "no, the flights are 24 hours apart you will be fine to wait." Grrrrr.....so an agent makes a mistake, and I'm left without a seat on the innaugural. MAJOR thumbs down to UA and the line of "there's nothing we can do."

Any suggestions for escalation?

UAL1KFLYER

Ok this is really strange. A couple days ago I booked an XC saver business seat on the inaugural flight for 80K miles. I secured seat 7J on UA952. Now I look on my itineraries and I see that UA has already bumped me out of business class and put me into First Class with seat 1K.

Should I call UA and ask them why they did this? Should I demand my Business Class seat back even though the inventory zero'ed out. I really wanted to try the new Business class product on this flight.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

worldtrav

It sounds to me like you have been awarded an op up in advance. They likely thought they had 32 seats in the old config and now only have 26 seats. Why not keep the F seat, presumably you are in C coming back so you can experience both, assuming you are returning on the new config.

gfowler-ord-1k

I am at the ORD RCC now. The reason UA wanted to wear my custom polo shirt is UA has a photographer accompanying me until departure. Pics at http://gfowler.smugmug.com/gallery/3868228

SASfan

ironman, very sorry to hear this. Can the 1K line help you? Who/what/when did you ticket this through originally?

jhayes_1780

Gene,

Is he following you to FRA... or just until the flight?

Also, please don't forget to take a look at the whole plane.... see how much E+ has changed.

gfowler-ord-1k

I am aboard 950 now. He was here until I boarded. My guess is others will take over at IAD. I will look at E+ also.

jhayes_1780

Cool, and BTW..... thanks for doing ALL of this. We really appreciate it.

UAL1KFLYER

Yeah thanks again Gene! Look forward to seeing you. I called UA and apparently they did op me up to First Class. I guess they had to since their wasn't enough seats in business class. \