gfunkdave

I'm flying ORD-FRA-MLA on UA and then LH in a couple months. I had previously put myself on the waitlist with miles but today I called UA and asked them to remove me from the waitlist. I want to check upgrade prices because maybe I can just buy up to PP which would be good enough. I expect Polaris would be too expensive.

But now that I'm no longer on the waitlist the website still doesn't show a cash upgrade option. It just says no upgrades are available. But I can still choose Miles and elect to re-waitlist for the PP and Polaris upgrades.

Does anyone know how I can start seeing cash upgrade offers again?

unitedwildcat

This is a known glitch that’s showing up on international itineraries, so far to Europe and Asia from the data I’ve seen. Itineraries to Africa seem unaffected. (Of course this is just speculation limited to what I have booked, so no guarantees this is correct and that’s why no info on other parts of the world!)

gfunkdave

Interesting. I also noticed that even though the seat map in premium cabins looks pretty open the inventory seems very restricted:

Repooc17

Seat maps are not always reliable...generally, bookings from 3rd party do not auto select seats for pax.

D1 as the lowest business class inventory is a bad sign...

unitedwildcat

That may be true but likely unrelated to the issue where cash upgrade options are not showing up

doug_999

I’ve seen the cash option come and go based on inventory. But/and, the agent on the phone should have been able to tell you the price before removing you from the waitlist. I’ve asked for that before as well.

gfunkdave

Apparently it is a new bug where the website won't show upgrade offers if any segment on the itinerary is not eligible for an upgrade. This is what the r/unitedairlines subreddit says.

cfischer

I don't think that is true. Also, you don't need remove yourself from the WL to get UG offers - you can simply call for pricing. Doesn't work online and also often doesn't work after removing a previous WL.

GBadger

I have a (possibly related) challenge that I'm unable to overcome. A few weeks ago I booked a ticket to Europe and applied PlusPoints to upgrade to Polaris. Since that time, I had several upgrades clear, leaving me with insufficient PP to upgrade this later itinerary. Since it is a B fare, I decided to go in and cancel the PP request (no problem) and apply miles instead (again, no problem). Miles were deducted, and the PP requested number decreased as expected.

However, a few days later I noticed that the App still showed "Upgrade -- Skipped (insufficient credits)". Curious, I called the 1K line, spent 45 minutes on the phone with an agent, who involved both their supervisor and the mileage plus line after confirming that the system still somehow thought I was applying PP. After removing all upgrade requests for the entire itinerary, and then re-applying them, she said that things looked good on her end.

Now, almost a week later, I am still seeing "Upgrade -- Skipped (insufficient credits)" on the App, and there is no waitlisted segment showing on united.com. I'm paranoid that I'm going to be skipped over if PN space opens up, so I'll probably call back once state-side in a few days...