E+ Availability
 

Good Afternoon Everyone.
I am *A Gold, and I am aware I do not get access to E+ Seating. Me and my partner are flying to Europe in October so I thought I would buy the Economy Plus package for $349 USD.
I was told I needed a United Mileage Plus number to buy this product so I signed up for one. I only got the Mileage plus number to buy the E+ and I want my flights credited to my Air Canada Aeroplan. However I noticed some people saying the miles from that flight must be credited to my United Mileage number, and not my AC Aeroplan in order to get my E+ Upgrade.
Anyone have any experience with this?

I am unable to check to see if There is E+ Availability. I signed up for Expert Flyer, but it can't show me either. United.com booking website will not show me Economy plus either. I can't see the E+ Seats at all.
Before I go and buy my E+ Pass, I want to make sure there are seats for both me and my partner.

My flights are as follows
YHZ-ORD ( UA 7561 October 3rd)
ORD-LHR ( UA 0928 October 3rd)

CDG-ORD ( UA 0943 October 17th)
ORD-YHZ ( UA 7626 October 17th)

Could some-one check these for me? $349 is expensive, I hope it will be worth it.

There are plenty of E+ seats available..no worries there. I checked. And you also will have no problem using E+ access and earning miles in your Aeroplan account. Just call reservations after booking the ticket and they can set it up for you.. there are actually 2 mileage number fields, 1 for mileage earning, and another for things like E+ access. I would definitely buy the E+ access. Just so you know... there are only 2 differences between E+ and regular economy... both make it worthwhile to me.. 1. a few inches more legroom (the seat is identical to regular economy seats, just a little more space in front of you), and 2. You get to sit in the front part of the economy cabin which means you get off the plane quicker and can get further ahead in the immigration line (and you do get served your food and drinks quicker since the FA's start serving in the front). No other differences..no free booze or better food.

The E+ seatmap for flight 928 ORD-LHR on 10/3 has several E+ seats available but very strangely all the seats on the right hand side of the plane in E+ show taken as well as the middle and right aisle seats of the center section (767). Someone else take a look... very odd.

Already answered before I could hit the send key.

You may be able to get a gate agent or one of the RCC agents to change your MP numbers over to AC, but the terms of the E+ upgrade package is quite clear about mileage assignment, unlike booking E+ as a UA elite. That's how I do it (fortunately out of the blue gifted Premier late last year by a generous FTer), and can always get my miles directed into my AE account if I wish. Having requalified for AC Elite months ago, I have just kept my UA flights going into my MP account, and I should hit PremEx in the fall.

Only an agent can ensure that your seating does not get bounced into the back back cabin once your UA number is removed from the file. In fact, you may find that if you can get this done on the outbound, your return seats have automatically gone into the back back coach cabin and you'll have to get E+ seating reassigned at check-in. Unless there is a valid UA elite/E+ number on the res, it defaults to regular coach seating, randomly assigned. Since your first check-in outbound will be by an AC agent, if s/he changes the account number, it could default your transAt segments to the regular coach cabin and you might not be able to get them back until you get to ORD where UA has full control again.

One other thing you can try but it must be done within a day or so of when your flight(s) post to your MP account. Call the MP centre and ask the agent to remove the credit from your account as you wish to submit the flight to AC. This can sometimes be done, and was for me, although my boarding pass did show my AE number but the change (done by LH at check-in) didn't register in the UA system and the UA segment posted to my UA account. (The short-haul LH segment did go into my AE account.)

So for safety, if the gate or RCC agent cannot make the adjustment to your AE number, you can ask her to remove the UA number completely so you have a blank boarding pass (for status/account) and that can always be sent to AE for later credit.

As for seeing the inventory, I'll check that out for you. Any AC codeshare will not be applicable for E+ of course.

I have a question to the E+ service.

I'm able to upgrade my flights from LAX to OGG with E+ already. As i have read, i will get more legroom, that is very interesting for me.

Does anybody know how much 'more' will mean?

Thank you

If reservations get confused when you try to use 2 FF#, you can always use your United number until check-in and then change to your AC number then. This will save your seat for you.

It depends on the plane. For flights to Hawaii:

If your plane is a:
757, 5 inches more
767 or 777, 4 inches more

It depends on the plane, but the United web site says "up to 5 inches."

The e+ is great for trips to Hawaii, last 2 flights E- and business were completely full while there were empty rows in e+. I had 2 seats there and back for a very comfortable flight. Just bring your own food from the airport

As for flights, the UAExpress looks okay at the moment with about three rows wide open in E+. The LHR flight is pretty full but is showing the A/B pairs in rows 22 through 26 still open. (Config is 2x3x2) Return the E+ cabins are both wide open, including on the CDG flight the centre seat sections. (When traveling as a couple, UA will not let you book the C and E seats keeping the D one open.) But there are five rows of A/B and six of F/G pairs open.

Hope this helps with your decision.

foxhunter, the actual amount depends on the distance flown. You can opt for paying by segment (you'd have to contact UA to determine those) or purchase a one-year "membership" in E+ which is what the OP would be doing. Then all your future flights on UA will have access to those seats for a 12-month period of time at no additional charge. (Or you can earn Premier status with 25K elite qualifying miles, or a set number of segments.)

pilotboy, feel free to PM me if you need more details. I've archived the seating charts for you and can email them as an attachment you should be able to see.

Once you see what plane you are on (listed on the seatmap), hop over to http://www.seatguru.com and check out their seatmap listings. They show the spacing for the seats in different sections.

Actually an agent cannot do anything to prevent the system from performing a sweep.

But you can have both numbers in your PNR - the UA one for status and the AC one for mileage credit. I collect LH miles this way for years now and never got kicked out of E+.

But the problem for the OP as UA mortal is that they will not find a decent agent you could talk to and file both FF numbers in the record. So the easy bit is to book and hold with MP number and upon check in credit it to the AC account.

That must work. If the check in agent says it cannot be done, abort the check-in and move over to the next agent :cool:.

As for seeing E+ seat availability, go to Expedia and do a dummy booking. The seat map will display E+ available seats but with marked "premium seats"

The lounge or gate agent can reassign an E+ seat to anyone and override the bounce back to the regular coach secton. The E+ membership functions differently from a normal elite status MP.

FQTS and FQTV
 

Relatively few agents know about this, but using one program's status and crediting to another is straightforward. If you call you might have to be quite persistent, but with an international itinerary I think (?) you're more likely to get a U.S. agent, rather than ICC. Worth doing ahead of time if you can, so you don't have to worry too much about it at checkin.

Anyhow, this is what you want to do:
Put your UA number in FQTS (Frequent Traveler Status to get E+ access)
Put your AE number in FQTV (for mileage credit to Aeroplan).

A reservations record is typically set up to default to FQTS and FQTV being the same, but that can be changed.

The Flyertalk mantra about calling back and trying again may be useful.

So I just went on-line to buy it, and it told me this..

Non-US Addresses
Currently, United Travel enhancements is only available to customers with addresses in the United States.


Hmmmmm

That's correct. Do you have a US credit card perhaps as well as a US mailing address?

Unfortunatly, no.

Under DM no sweeps can happen anyway.

Or do you mean that a lounge agent can prevent the sweet at any time before the DM?

That is what I suggested in post #12. And you also list the major issue: other than a US 1K agent, I never ran into any UA agent who knew what FQTS or FQTV entries are. Not even under other names such as "mileage credit to Miles&More, status to MP".

So if I do this in SIN or SYD, I regularly get my meal choices last :( .

Again UA's problem #1 (actually problem #1 through #20) are their call centres :td:.

Okay, so to UPDATE..
What I decided to do was get my husband to buy the E+ package. He doesn't have any status and doesn't collect status miles so he doesn't care his flights to europe will be credited on his mileage plus. This way I will get to sit in E+ With him, and still get my miles credited to Air Canada, where I collect my points!
Perfect!!! :D:D

Also, somehow, It let processed my E+, even though I have a Canadian Credit Card. Oh Well.

Yeah, and I've never understood this. What POSSIBLE reason could they have for this restriction???

Sometimes it seems like United is allergic to revenue... :rolleyes:

I was just looking at buying E+ access myself today, so I was surprised to see this thread is only 2 days old.

I'm US Chairmans, so I have the same problem. The summary I took away from this thread is "yes, you can do it, but it's a giant pain and be prepared to devote at least an hour of your life to phone calls every time you want to fly on United". Is that basically correct?

It's ridiculous - if I'm going to spend the cash for E+ access with UA, why should I have to go through this? It's not going to get me to change my FF status to United (they don't operate from my home airport). As far as I can tell, this policy is actually bad for UA, since it means they lose out on my E+ membership fee.

Spot on.

The official reason why the US 1K lines are no longer allowed to accept foreign credit cards are the minimally higher surcharges these cards imply for the seller (SQ illegally solves that issue by issuing the tix in your home currency at a very
disadvantageous exchange rate ... for you).

However if they do not notice it, it always goes through smoothly. I always buy my awards from the US line, and united.com doesn't notice either of a credit card is alien.

Are you serious?

How can an international airline not allow non-US credit cards?
This is LUNACY!

Unbelievable.

I am not kidding you g_leyser! I am dead serious.

And it is a major lunacy, as I even offered them to pay the credit card penalty which is permissible for Australian CCs - hence removing all possible cost factors for UA - but they would not bite.

Last year I bought an Asiana ticket for which I had to do a reroute. I could pay all charges on the phone with a Korean agent. Foreign card, no local address (I mean UA knows my card and address for 10+ years), agent hardly spoke English ... no problem.
But when talking to a 1K agent ... no way :rolleyes::td:.

If PayPal, Amazon, and so many other merchants can take it .. why not UA???