Yesterday I outlined my experience with United’s new unlimited domestic upgrade program, although there’s still something I don’t understand. As I mentioned, upgrades out of Tampa will be ridiculously easy for everyone, so just for fun I decided to check the Economy Plus seatmap today for a flight on Friday. It’s well within the upgrade…
Continue reading: Who are these weird people?
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Well yeah, people can buy an annual option but it can also be purchased on a segment basis as well, so I think that's where a lot of the E+ pax are coming from.
If this is UA 424 TPA-IAD at 7:20 AM on Friday 4/2, E- is full. these people are mostly op-ups
@ Dan -- Fair enough, though for the price I have a hard time imagining that many people are buying up, especially out of TPA, which is the ultimate $49 one way market.
@ hobo13 -- OMG, I'm so excited about flying all of a sudden. Hope some of my FA friends are on that flight. Can't wait to hear their "commentary" on UDU.
@ Gene -- E- is full, but they don't assign people Economy Plus till the gate.
@ Scott -- Fair enough, but that's a lot of people!
I bought annual E+ back before I was a 3P (circa 2007). I used it on SFO-LHR, SFO-CDG, and a few mid/tcons. Totally worth it.
I had a few itin's I booked before UDU was implemented and the UG wasn't immediately processed. I had to call, after the upgrade window, and get put on the list, which cleared immediately for the specific flight.
My wife was confirmed upgraded at the window for Premiers for a flight today - IAD-ORD - I was quite surprised given the route.
I noticed the same thing last week with my MSY-DEN and DEN-LAX flights, there were a lot of E+ seats taken with NF>0 and within the Premier upgrade window. Mysteriously, about 24 hours prior to the flight a bunch of people moved up to F, I'm not sure what it was, perhaps they still have a few hiccups with reservations made before UDU.
These could also be economy reward redemptions which dont qualify for upgrade.
How does a person get pressigned the exit row without being UDU-eligible as a 1P+? I guess economy award redemption is one way. Any others?
Let's see what it looks like in two months - I'd wager that these are elites who booked pre-UDU and weren't automatically added to the list and don't know that they need to do that. Once a lot of those pre-UDU reservations get cycled out of the system, I bet this phenomenon will go away.
I think maybe the UDUs is the issue. I had to call 7 or 8 times to finally get my UDU requests for this weekend to "stick". I have no clue what the problem was.
UA is still holding 1st class seats just like all other routes. Never know when they'll be sold. I'd love to see how the flight goes out.