Sidny

I had originally booked a United flight to Hawaii many months ago using Saver-level miles for First Class (only 40k), and I'm now trying to change my mid-Feb 2012 flight to be two days earlier. I'm told there are no longer any Saver awards available at that level (makes sense), so I asked if I could switch to Economy which is showing online for 40k Standard awards. If I did that, I would have to pay to redeposit the miles into my account, and then pay again to re-book in Economy since the flight is ~3 weeks out. The UA reservations agent was kind enough to put me on a "waitlist" for the first class seats on my desired date which, if granted, wouldn't cost me any $$ because it's simply a date change and no change to the routing. BTW...this was a one-way booking, my return flight is a separate ticket.

So, the point of all this is...what would you guess my chances are of the waitlist being granted? I know only the UA-computer gods can really answer this question, just curious if people have had luck with being waitlisted in a similar situation on United?

rkkwan

What flights are you booked on? First class awards to Hawaii are hard to come by, especially on the longer flights like ORD. From LAX, maybe better as they have more flights each day.

mrwunrfl

What is your routing? If you are connecting then are the flight numbers different? What kind of aircraft are you on?

I think your chances are good, but I am basing that on only one experience. That was on a KOA-LAX flight where the pilot welcomed mentioned Mileage Plus and welcomed the elite fliers - saying that there was 1 GS, 3 1Ks (or some surprisingly low number) on that 757. I suppose that there were a lot of upgraders, F award holders, and a few paid F. The 24 F seats were all full.

Instead of holding your breath, just log on to your United account and make sure that it says Upgrade - Waitlisted.

Sidny

Thanks for your responses, I read but didn't respond myself--I got distracted. My routing was IND to ORD to LAX to LIH.

Good news, I was granted my waitlist request! I was able to see, shortly after getting of the phone with United, that they had put me on the waitlist, but the question was when I would be moved from waitlisted to confirmed for my requested flight (if ever). Logged on today and saw that all but the first leg had been confirmed. Called United and a representative was able to make the first leg work too! She just moved me to an earlier flight so we could consider the entire flight confirmed.

Thanks again for both your responses.