So, I decided, screw this: I’m going to use some of these ever-accumulating airline miles on United and upgrade my travel to the UK. Going steerage class on international is tolerable, at best (and last flight it was that way only because of adjacent empty seats).
Problem is, I’ve never done this before. Which is, of course, the challenge.
So I call up our corporate travel agent, who gives me the United number to call, the tickets having been issued already.
I call the United number, get bounced out of the automated system (which I had, to be fair, given the wrong flight info) over to the Mileage Plus desk, but then over to the International desk.
And, after a few minutes, I’m 45k flight miles poorer (out of 116k), but I’m upgraded to business class on the trip back and on stand-by for the trip out (which is actually the more important one). (And 30k of that is the outbound flight, so if it doesn’t pan out, I don’t spend those miles.)
I hate being on stand-by, really I do. (See, “Issues, Control Freak” under my dossier), but for the chance to actually enjoy the flight a bit, I’ll do it.
If you have any friends who work for United, now would be a good time to call them. If not, be really affable when you check in, be there early, and try to resist the temptation to hover anxiously. Check the waitlist status weekly, and when you call ask if you can be given a higher priority (especially if you rack up a lot more miles between now and departure day).
Good luck!
I always try to be affable and non-pushy (sometimes to a fault) to the podium staff.
Since the flight is tomorrow, I don’t have much time to wait … 🙂