Thread: United non-rev to australia....Chances? Weight restrictions? HELP please

I guess I jinxed myself. When I showed up to the gate, the MEL agent told me that the SYD flight had already been weight restricted but there was plenty of extra seats on the MEL flight and they didn't have much in the cargo. I happily get my seat, get on the plane, change into my pijamas and make myself comfortable for the 15h flight. We are waiting and waiting, and after about 15 minutes the gate agent comes back on and tells the stanbys that we all have to get off because they weight restricted the flight due to the rain (it had been raining for hours so I dont understand why they did this after the fact. I was devastated, it was 11 pm, and I had no place to stay in LA for the night.

Luckily I decided not to give up and I ran over to the SYD gate, which hadn't departed yet. A family on the MEL flight that had higher priority was already talking to the gate agent there, and I over heard the agent telling them that there was one available seat. The family decided not to split up, and I got the seat. I felt like I was in some weird nightmare turned into a miracle happy ever after. It was crazy.

Now Im trying to get back to the states tomorrow going to Boston for xmas with the family. Both the SFO and LAX flights out of SYD are overbooked by 10+ in economy, but the LAX flight has 15 open in business. Does anyone know how the airlines handle this situation, given that there is no one on the upgrade list? Do they just chose random economy customers to upgrade to business?

made it on business for the SYD-LAX leg! It was a xmas miracle! Then for LAX-BOS I was in a middle economy between two overweight guys....but I guess I cant complain. Merry xmas!