Upgrading With Miles

ISP

Senior
Apr 3, 2003
321
1
Hello all,

I have a question for the US folks in RES that might know anything about this...

If a PAX wants to burn miles to upgrade a RES, they call the regular 800 number and if there is inventory, they are automatically upgraded. However, the person in RES tells the PAX they must call the DM Service Center to have the miles deducted from their account.

Because of this, PAX might upgrade a RES many days in advance, but only have miles deducted at the last minute. In addition, PAX who don't have enought miles to upgrade might do this, and thus US is unable to sell revenue F/C seats that might be available if the PAX doesn't call RES to have the miles burned.

Why does US do this? Why can't miles be deducted from DM accounts by regular RES agents over the phone during the initial RES?

The reason I bring this up is because I went to check in online the other day (I was traveling on an award/miles upgrade), and I got a message saying that "if I am traveling on a mileage award, I must check in at the airport." I continued my online check in anyway, and I was still given a boarding pass. If I hadn't called the DM Service center to have them deduct miles and be honest about it, I have a feeling I would have still traveled in first class.

Does anyone know about this? I do know that several years ago I got to LAX and I had forgotten to have miles deducted. The ticket counter had to call the service center to deal with the situation because there was a block on the RES. My big concern is that when checking in online, there doesn't appear to be a block if you don't have the miles deducted.
 
Management was informed about this in April, 2003 and quickly worked to seek and institute a solution. The problem was resolved within 3 working days. It sounds like you may have found a secondary glitch or re-appearance of the initial problem as the computer system and platforms are changed. The last time I attempted to upgrade with miles was in February, so I am not aware of the current situation.

This was a significant error in the system beginning in December, 2002 until April, 2003. It seemed to coincide with the start of e-upgrades. I had two trips during that time which were to be upgraded with miles, but ended up having e-upgrades debited at time of travel. I thought the first was a fluke, but the second made me realize the global nature of the problem.

Since April, 2003, I have not seen the problem that you are describing. Res has deducted the miles without a second phone call. I'll defer to the res people as to their specific instructions. The same screen that you describe on internet check-in does pop-up, but still allows the customer to continue with the process.

Upgrading with miles from a coach fare other than Y and possibly M requires there to be seat availability in the E bucket. Typically on a short-haul route, there will be 3 F seats available when E zeros out. More recently, there have been more F4 E0's. Trans-con, high yield markets and certain flights/ days of travel may result in few if any E seats being made available.
 
AtlanticBeach said:
Upgrading with miles from a coach fare other than Y and possibly M requires there to be seat availability in the E bucket.
To clarify, Y and B coach fares are upgraded into the P bucket; all others are upgraded into the E bucket. I believe US added a new N coach fare which is in effect a full fare GoFare bucket, but I'm not sure which upgrade bucket applies to N coach fares.
 
Hi Art...I'll try to clarify a few items about upgrades:

Domestic 10,000/20,000 Upgrades...

When reservation is booked via phone directly with US res, agent can upgrade and, at time of ticketing, append what we call US10/US20 as a "ticket designator" to the end of fare basis code on the ticket. Example...QE21NR/US20. This is a one step process when it is not necessary to get the DM Service Center involved since the computer will pull the miles automatically.

If the psgr has booked and ticketed by web or travel agt and the ticket has already been issued, then we have missed the opportunity to add the US20 as a ticket designator so, hence, the DMSC needs to be called for the miles to be deducted and added to the PNR.

International
 
This sounds right. If you upgrade from the get go, you can essentially auto upgrade.

If done after ticketing, you have to make two calls.

The thing that REALLY bugs me is that if you upgrade after ticketing using a US20, the ticket agent at the airport has to go through the painful experience of using those red carbon tickets two write out the return portions of the upgraded ticket.