US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Upgrade Chances

Will be flying on US for the first time in years on the following
Fri, Mar 18, 2005
Departs 10:00pm, Arrives 5:47am
US Airways 112
Seattle, WA to Philadelphia, PA

Sat, Mar 19, 2005
Departs 6:00pm, Arrives 8:25am
US Airways 2
Philadelphia, PA to Rome, Italy

Fri, Mar 25, 2005
Departs 11:15am, Arrives 3:20pm
US Airways 3
Rome, Italy to Philadelphia, PA

Fri, Mar 25, 2005
Departs 5:55pm, Arrives 9:02pm
US Airways 115
Philadelphia, PA to Seattle, WA
($242.00 All in-booked through Orbitz)

I had ~81K mile in my Dividend Miles account. I say had because I've had them take 60K out in hopes of snagging an upgrade. Well the transcons have cleared but not the transatlanic. Unless the whole trip clears I'm planning on redepositing them. And it will cost me how much????
Is there any sure fire way, besides calling everyday to check my chances???? Also I'd like to be able to keep an asile seat for the entire trip if the upgrade doesn't clear, anyway to assure myself of this????

No status with US\UA, should I try to do a challange while I'm at it???
With my current flying pattern I don't see using US\UA often, so seems a bit wasteful.
And is it wasteful to burn 60k miles just so I don't have to sit in the back-o-the-bus???? Been a while since I had to do that as well

Thanks
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Both trans-Atlantic flights are showing C9 D9 Z9. Y looks pretty full, but it's not full yet (still showing M9 but 0s below that). Keep an eye on the flights using http://www.flyaow.com/classcwt.htm and if J fills up you can cancel the upgrades (and hope that your transcons aren't full in Y).

Or you can always cancel the upgrades now and buy some SWUs (useable a day before the flight) on ebay for about $150 each.

There will be a redeposit charge of about $75 to get your miles back.

Regarding your last question (about burning miles just to avoid sitting in Y), I've been struggling with the same thing for awhile. International F is always fun, especially on CX or BA, but would you rather sit in F/J (no real F on US) or have an extra trip somewhere? I've burned lots of miles on international F awards and upgrades (135k AA miles for a CX award to Australia; 200k BA miles for BA 2 F awards to Greece; etc...). Usually my rational is that a Y award is not a good return on my miles, but an F ticket (which I cannot afford to pay $$$ for) is. Burning 40-50k miles for a Y ticket to Europe doesn't make sense to me when the ticket only costs $400-600. Burniing 135k miles for that CX F ticket that would cost $18,000 is a great return. So, my answer is this: if you have lots of miles (not sure how many miles you have in other programs), go ahead and upgrade using miles. If you would rather use those 60,000 US miles for 2 tickets to a place like STT or AUA (where Y tickets cost a lot of $$), then save them. Also, I always like keeping enough miles with airlines that I rarely fly just in case I ever need a last minute ticket somewhere. Keeping around 20-25k US miles might save you a lot of cash should you ever need to buy a personal ticket at the last minute.

Or you can always cancel the upgrades now and buy some SWUs (useable a day before the flight) on ebay for about 150 each.

I looked all over e-bay, found nothing

Try www.ebay.com :D - a simple search for "US Airways Envoy" brings up 6 matches which would get you the "SWU".

-JC

I'm not advocating this, but if I were heading to Europe and the V fare was a lot more than the cheapest fare, and I didn't feel like paying more for the V fare and then arguing with US on whether or not my CP SWU was usable on a V fare, I would likely just spend the $80 (my earlier estimate was a bit high) on ebay and take my chances upgrading at the gate.

Check out: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1310&item=6510534715&rd=1

Try www.ebay.com :D - a simple search for "US Airways Envoy" brings up 6 matches which would get you the "SWU".-JC

Thanks, guess it would've helped to know what to search for