After noting that my BOS-SFO flight tonight was changed from a 757-200 to a 767-300, I called to verify the status of my upgrade request.

Phone Agent confirmed the equipment change and told me that I was on the Priority Waitlist for the upgrade to the next cabit, but that the waitlist has not cleared yet. The Agent further commented that all names on the prioirty list would clear first before the "2nd" waitlist.

Is there really such a thing as a "priority" waitlist? Or is this just something the phone agent made up?

Yes there are indeed two waitlists. "PA" and "PB"..which stand for priority A and priority B. If you are 1K you typically get to be placed on the PA list which must clear out before any PB's are upgraded. Although there's plenty of anecdotal evidence that agents have the leeway of putting anyone on the the PA waitlist (regardless of status) if they choose to.

When requesting upgrades yourself online.. 1K's and requests made from a 1K's account go on PA.. all others will go on PB.

I currently don't have status (later this month i will though...) but I had requested the upgrade supported by miles (15,000) on the day of booking.

I was also thinking that the 757 has 24 First class seats and the 767-300 has 26 C + 6 F= 32 Premium seats, so the equipment change adds 8 premium seats which should add to the chances of upgrade. This plane also has 7 fewer economy seats, so somone needs to move up anyways (looks like plane was F0/Y0 yesterday...)

I assume that the 6 First class seats on the 767-300 would go to paid F or
1K/GS folks only, so I have to illusion of getting one of them, but I guess I have a fair chance at one of the 26 business class seats...

Since this is the day of the flight... you might be in trouble (I didn't pay that close attention to your original post where you said the flight is today). Yes, your chances in general improve when there's more premium seats however this flight is sold out in all classes. If the upgrade does not clear by the time you get to the airport then you'll be on what's called the Departure Management list which is sorted first by status and second by fare paid (the PA/PB waitlist is no longer in play). So, as a general member you'll be behind anyone with status on the list.

This flight is showing completely sold out (assuming you mean UA179). Unfortunately your odds are not good. They may even be asking for volunteers to get bumped..you might have better luck with that than getting upgraded.

If by some miracle you do get upgraded..enjoy the fantastic business class seats! They will be the new lie-flat configuration with on demand entertainment (if indeed it is a 3 class 767).

Although it's true there are PA and PB waitlists, at first I thought the OP was asking a somewhat different question, which has also always interested me. Has anyone ever been told by any CSR that they are on "a waitlist" without using the word "priority"? I had assumed that all reps were simply told for all callers, status or not, to never use the term "waitlist" without using the adjective "priority" first. Sort of like, you can't say "Hemispheres Magazine", without saying "the award winning Hemispheres magazine".

I did NOT get the upgrade after all.

The RCC agent in Boston explained to me that my ticket was not "upgradeable" because the fare type was too low (U type).

I didn't think her info was accurate, and I tried to show her my
itinerary printout that shows the original (pre-equipment swap) upgrade
request was waitlisted and that it didn't make sense to me that the
web-site would let me request the upgrade if the fare was not eligible.

She told me that the printout didn't mean anything and that she was looking at the information (on her computer) and she was very absolute in her feedback that in her 30 years of doing this, a "U" fare is not upgrade eligible.

To make a long story short, dispite requesting the upgrade at the time of booking, and calling to confirm it was still waitlisted upon noticing the equipment change (early on day of travel), I was never actually on the list, I did not receive a DM card at check in, and when I inquired about it at the RCC, there was no attempt to correct the situation and put me on the list.
(I have concluded that somehow with the equipment chagne from a 757-200 to a 767-300, my upgrade request was dropped/lost).

I obviously have no way of knowing if my upgrade would have cleared or not, but I think that as a MP member (non status), I am supposed to be able to request a domestic upgrade on a "U" fare, and in this case the RCC agent did not help me with that request. I was given false information when she insisted that a "U" fare was not upgrade eligible...

Note that I am really trying to make a distinction between being able to request the upgrade and be on the wait-list and with the upgrade clearing.

If all the upgrades all went to 1K/1P passangers, I guess that is what I would expect, but I still don't understand why the RCC agent was so insistent on the non-upgrade eligibility of a domestic U fare... (I verified on the web-site that U fares are in fact eligible...)

The real challange for me is that I don't know how to respond to the "I've been doing this for 30 years, trust me, I know..." line when I kind of know that what I'm being told is not correct...

The agent was dead wrong. A U fare is absolutely upgradeable for a domestic ticket... it is not among the list of upgradeable fares for international flights because U is not used for international itineraries..but it most certainly is for domestic. Your fare was definitely eligible to be upgraded..however it really isn't likely you would have made it on an evening weekday transcon that was already totally sold out in all classes. Sorry you didn't make it.

One theory (that one of my co-workers had) is that when the flight was a 2-cabin 757-200, I was waitlisted for NF as expected. When the plane was swapped to a 3-cabin 767-300, my upgrade request should have been changed to an NC upgrade request, but it was left as an NF request. Some part of the process saw that I had a waitlisted upgrade from "U" to NF on a 3-cabin aircraft, which I clearly understantd is a no-go and as a result the request was effectively dropped. The other part of the theory is that when I called MP CS to verify that the upgrade was still waitlisted, they were looking at the "old" information but had no way of knowing that there info was out-of-date.

Another traveller in our party (who happens to be 1K and a former GS member) was also denied the upgrade based on this same "U" fare not-eligible claim, but decided to not accept the RCC staff's story and talked with the gate-agent who issued him his "C" BP. It turns out that the RCC staff and the gate-agent were both issuing upgrades without comparing notes and as a result that seat was issued to 2 different passangers. When the other "C" BP holder saw the conflict they called the flight attendent over, the flight attendent called the gate-agent to resolve. The gate-agent changed the other passanger's seat to another C seat and had my 1K friend keep his seat, and all was well, until yet another passanger showed up with a BP for the seat of the moved passenger. At this point the individual that was moved by the gate-agent got off the plane, went back in the RCC (right next to C19 in Boston) and pulled the RCC agent (not the gate agent) onto the plane to resolve the difference. The RCC agent recongnized the 1K passenger (the one traveling with me) as the one that she told inside the RCC had a non-upgradeable fare, she asked him where he got the C BP, and he told her from the gate-agent. And at that point the RCC agent said "no" and instructed the flight-attendent that this seat belongs to the moved passanger. Evidently the gate-agent and the RCC agent were both insisting that each other was correct, and in the end the RCC agent trumped the gate-agent on the call of which 1K passenger to let have the seat. And then she decided on the spot to downgrade my 1K friend at that moment back down to E+.

I hope that I'm explaining this well, as it was quite a sight to see....


This entire story makes me confident that my non-status upgrade would not have cleared, but I find the whole issue of the RCC and the gate-agent both clearing upgrades without being in sync is just a mess....

I recall reading somewhere that once the flight is under gate control, the RCC should not be making changes unless they call ahead - sounds like that's what happened here.

Folks, just a question about RickFuller's story: how can two boarding passes be issued for one seat? Wouldn't the computer know that the boarding pass has already been assigned and issued and therefore refuse to accept a boarding pass instruction a second time for another pax?

I had similar, but not exactly same thing happen 3-4 years ago, but this is evidence that GA can tweak the list if he/she is in the mood...

I had made resi on the phone with 15,000 mile confirmed upgrade. I went online and printed my itin with seat assignment.

When I got to airport I was given BP with a seat in Y. I showed my printed itin to the GA who said they had downgraded me because the phone agent wasn't authorized to process that upgrade and it needed a supervisor to sign off on it. I showed the GA my printed itin with confirmed upgrade. A few keystrokes later she said "You are #1 on the upgrade list now". That may have been a way to get me to step aside, but 10 mins later, she calls my name and gives me new BP, so it all worked out in the end.