United Airlines seems to have a glitch that caused a reader who spent miles to upgrade their flight to be downgraded to coach, and almost denied boarding. This is an Embraer 175 regional jet, operated by SkyWest.
He was waiting at the airport after arriving off a connecting flight, and he decided to spend miles to upgrade. United allowed him to upgrade, confirming the seat. However “the app said I needed to check in — but it wouldn’t let me.”
I tried multiple times through both the app and the website, and both failed. Assuming it was just a glitch (since I had a confirmed upgrade), I went to the gate.
At boarding, the gate agent told me my seat had been released because I wasn’t checked in. He managed to find me an economy seat, but said he’d never seen that happen before. If the flight had been full — which it often is — I might not have made it home.
The passenger complained to United. They refunded his 15,000 miles and gave him 5,000 miles as an apology. But here’s what seems to have happened.
- A confirmed MileagePlus Upgrade Award (or PlusPoints) can trigger a reticketing or revalidation. That “touch” to the ticket and reservation can undo online check-in.
- And once you’re inside United’s 45-minute cutoff, you can no longer check in for the flight. The system does you as “not checked in” for the flight, and the gate gives your seat to someone else.
When the mileage upgrade processed, the passenger was confirmed into PN inventory. After an upgrade, a ticket can be revalidated or re-issued (in my old recollections, they have sometimes reissued tickets even though this shouldn’t be necessary). And that can drop the checked-in status. The passenger needs to re-check in. Inside the check-in cutoff they can no longer do so.
Here, the passenger may not yet have been inside the checkin cutoff when they processed the upgrade – but they just assumed the app was wrong (after all, they had checked in, in fact they flew their first segment to Chicago! His checked bag flew on the flight!). They didn’t go to a gate or a United agent for help.
Since June 3, 2025, United’s domestic check‑in cutoff is 45 minutes prior to departure. If you’re not checked in, you lose your seat.
Any ticket exchange (and some revalidations) can invalidate the previously issued boarding‑pass token. The app then shows “Check in required,” and if you’re inside cutoff you can’t re‑check in. The mobile boarding pass disappears when the ticket is “out of sync” post‑change.
You’ll know something is amiss with your own travels if your mobile boarding pass disappears or the app flips to “check in required” after an upgrade. That means online check-in got dropped. Fix it before the cutoff. And if you can’t, get help from an agent right away telling them exactly what you need: “Upgrade just cleared, boarding pass disappeared, would you please verify I’m checked in in DCS?”
“They refunded his 15,000 miles and gave him 5,000 miles as an apology.”
Not great, not terrible.
This just happened on AA, I same day changed, but did it at the airport with a ticket agent. She was able to change me and get me into F. I was given my boarding pass, went through TSA without an issue. Once on got on airside, I wanted to see if I could change my flight. When I fired up the app, it said I needed to check in. But I couldn’t do that. So went back out to the ticket agent (I was at SNA), the same agent, stated she made a “mistake”, rechecked me in, new boarding pass, same seat. After getting through TSA, I fired up the app, and it continued to say, “Check in required” as I wanted to change seats. SNA does not have a customer service desk, and all gate agents were busy with flights. I just wanted them to close the flight out. Once that was done, they looked into the ticket and couldn’t figure out what the app was saying (I showed them what it was showing me), but I was able to get on my flight.
With this UA flyer, why didn’t he go to Customer service or another gate to see if they could help?
I had a situation with United where they canceled a connecting flight from Denver. When I checked in the next morning they said my morning flight had been canceled and that I’d be put on the next one. Thing is, that morning flight actually wasn’t cancelled. By the time I found out from another agent after waiting in another line, boarding had closed and they considered me a no-show. Then I had to fly standby on an evening flight. I was stuck at Denver for 24 hours and when I wrote to them they gave me a measly 5000 miles as apology. (I also had to buy my own United lounge pass because they wouldn’t give me one and Centurion didn’t consider me connecting since my prior leg was the day before and now I was on standby.)
@Stranded in PHX — Sounds like ‘bad tech’ at AA…
@Cindi — Uh oh; sounds like 5K points is the standard ‘apology’ at UA. (Here’s $50 for ya troubles.)