boeingair

Yikes! We are flying LAX-BOS, I'll edit my above post.

I did check availability, and while there are a number of transcon options available, none of them have any NF inventory, so I picked the flights that seemed to have the most F inventory still available.

I'm a 1P and my flying companion is a 2P. At the gate it is probably best that the PNR stay together, I'd just hate to lose the upgrades if IM releases them one at a a time causing us to be passed over.

fadeforward

Haha, that makes much more sense. It really comes down to whether you expect it to go to the gate (don't split) or not (split). At this point, for a flight this coming week on a transcon, I would expect it to go to the gate. Still, I would 1) recheck F availability (F9/P9/A9 or what?), 2) Call and ask about how long the waitlist is, PA and PB, and how many seats are left to sell, and 3) make your decision based on that. All else being equal, though, at this point, I would guess you could just stay together. What's going on for your return flight?

Downunder girl

UPDATE:

As posted earlier, I am on a 2 pax PNR and STILL waitlisted for SFO-JFK and also JFK-SFO, after almost 5 months of waiting .

The NC=1 on SFO-JFK that I reported was available (even though we were on the w/list) finally disappeared about 2 weeks ago after being there all this time. So who knows what happened . We havent cleared and the NC=1 is gone .

Not sure if IM took it away or if someone actually did jump over us on the w/list. In this case only IM probably know what happened and of course the lucky person (if there was one) that snagged the 1 NC seat. At this late stage I have decided to just leave it as it is. Weero's account of rebooks and issues with my longer connected transcon has scared me enough to do nothing . I hope it does go in our favour at the gate. Apparently the C cabin is still wide open and there is a short waitlist of which I am supposedly at the top.

Here's hoping .

Downunder girl

Well we did NOT split our pnrs. Was it the right thing to do, I still really dont know . After almost 6 months on the waitlists this is how it played out:

On UA 852 SFO-JFK p.s flight we both cleared approx 24 hrs before flight ^. Myself, MDG and my CR1 benefactor were all thrilled . Got to try out the new Westin doona and pillows and hot food was still served in the C cabin ^. Was a great flight with excellent crew!

Now this is where it gets bad. UA 15 JFK-SFO p.s did not clear. Arrived at airport to see only 3 avail C seats, 15 on w/list with me on list at no.5 and Mini DG as no. 8 with a couple between us at no. 6 and 7. Now we did NOT split pnrs, so I have no idea how that split of our waitlist priorities came to be. If anyone in UA knows how that works, I would love to hear from you. I am 2P and Mini DG is 3P but we were on same pnr so I thought that meant Mini DG still had my status for w/list! Clearly not . I did not stay at gate and watch the "torture" as we were admitted to the RCC so we stayed there until boarding.

To make things worse, we were in row 15 in Y, so we had a front row seat to see all the action in C class including those lovely Westin blankets, pillows and new interactive DVD players being handed out to the lucky ones !

mahasamatman

Because that's the way the DM list works. Everyone goes on their own status at that point.

fadeforward

1) In the past hour, my flight tomorrow dropped from F6 to F3.

2) In that same time, 3 people disappeared from the seat map in different 757 Exit Row seats.

3) These seats were not filled when I waitlisted my CR1s for my 2-person itinerary.

4) This evidence is consistent with a model where IM releases NF seats one-by-one, clearing waitlisted individuals by jumping over pairs who joined the PA list at an earlier time.

Of course there are alternative explanations. These 3 people might have been waitlisted ahead of me, but I didn't notice because they had no seat assignments or different seat assignments. This is also consistent with some alternative sorting rule where GS members get prioritized over 1Ks, if these 3 pax were GS. I'm also checked in online, and I've always been paranoid that this deprioritizes you somehow on the IM waitlist, even though I and many others have cleared IM when checked in.

I just thought I'd report. In case you're wondering, I didn't split the PNRs because I have a non-status companion; I didn't want to risk stranding her in E-; and I wanted to upgrade the return flight with e-500s and needed her to clear at my window. We've got 8DE, which is a decent pair seat; we have plenty of my drink chits to burn; and, who knows, we may get the rare GA who links people together on the DM (where I'm still unlikely to clear).

Diplomatico

Funny, I've just had the opposite experience today. My son and I are traveling on the same PNR, LHR-ORD-SAN, in March and were waitlisted Y --> C on the upgrade. Kept us both on the same PNR since he's non-status. Upgrades cleared this morning.

fadeforward

Oh, that's not inconsistent. If they open a bunch of NF seats at once, then pax waitlisted on the same PNR can clear at once. In my case, I'm guessing they opened up NF space one-by-one, allowing people behind us to jump over us.

If FT conventional wisdom is true, that doesn't mean that people on the same PNR never clear, it just means they can get jumped over if upgrades are released one-by-one.

EDIT: And, as it turned out, our upgrades cleared at the 4-hour mark. Guess they decided to open 2 spots at once?