On United, the upgrade waitlist displays the first initial as well as the first three characters of the last name. That often results in a game of scrabble, but sometimes unscrambling is not even necessary.
A reader in Singapore shared a humorous upgrade list from his flight from Singapore to San Francisco earlier today. It includes four names, all of which form words without any sort of re-arranging.
- Barf
- Bead
- Dude
- Wick
Lest you think this a very odd post, there is a whole thread dedicated to occurrences like this on Flyertalk. People get excited when they see SMI/J or MUN/O on the upgrade, thinking it might be Jeff Smisek or Oscar Munoz. In most cases, though, J/SMI is John Smith and not the disgraced former CEO…
I’ve seen names including DEA/D, LAR/D, MIL/K, and STO/P.
CONCLUSION
I know this is a bit of an inside joke for frequent United flyers, but I chuckled at the image above and thought you might as well.
If you are ever bored before a flight or while boarding, have a look at the upgrade waitlist (available on airport monitors and the United app) and try your luck at seeing how many words you can piece together.
What sort of words have you seen on the upgrade waitlist? I’ve also seen some dirty words that I will not repeat here and ask you also to abstain from posting below…
(H/T: Jim)
I always get hosed because there’s a 1K based out of Denver with my same initials and on trips to the west coast we are often on the same flights. I’m only Plat 🙁 I’ve gotten false hopes of an upgrade multiple times.
I don’t know if United now uses an algorithm to prevent certain word combos but I was on a United flight several years ago where someone who might have been named Ken FUCciano was on the upgrade list for everyone at the gate and online to take note of.
I saw CRA/P the other day! 😀
POO/S
FUC/K
I’m serious. I have screen shots.
BUN, T
POT, S
CHU, B
LEN, T
“I do mind, the Dude minds. This will not stand, ya know, this aggression and upgrade shenanigans will not stand, man.”
Not very exciting, but I’m CRA,B (which are also the first 4 letters of my mood when my upgrade doesn’t clear)