pbr6891

Wondering if there are tricks to achieve the following ...

Award booking rules allow to waitlist for saver business or saver first on a given flight if you can secure a saver economy seat on that flight ...

my challenge is that I need to fly on very specific flights to meet up with the rest of a travelling party and that so far those flights (friday evening IAD-FRA or IAD-BRU about 2 month away) have no saver economy awards (even as a 1K)...

At this point i booked a regular economy award (to make sure I have a seat)

What are my best options to get an upgrade (or at least waitlist for it) :
a) take my chance and call (HUCA as needed) to request an upgrade waitlist to business or first (would the class requested make a difference ? )
b) keep an eye for a saver business or saver first book it and cancel the economy award
c) keep an eye for a saver economy , book it , cancel the full economy award, and then waitlist for saver business or saver first
(How often should I keep an eye ? once a day ? once a week ?) (anyones know of a tool / app that allows to keep track of bucket availability ?)
d) any other idea ?

Side question : anyone understands why there is a restriction : you need saver econ to waitlist saver bus / first .. .? given that on TATL saver bus/first is more miles than regular econ .. it seems booking regular econ would not create any weird situation whether a waitlist for saver bus/first clears or not ...

Thanks !

Kacee

First, are you fully logged in when you search? Elites have enhanced access to saver economy awards but you have to be logged in when you search to see it.

Assuming there are no saver Y awards, your best bet is to check daily for award availability on your desired flights. If you see saver Y, book it and waitlist for J. If you see saver J, book that.

mauiUAflyer

You can also use the "change/cancel" feature to help you find other cabins/other routings. You can do that in addition to waitlisting...

jmanirish

Maybe not the best answer, but it has to do with standard awards being a completely different award type. When booked on a saver J/F award, you're always allowed to book any leg in a lower cabin saver award (i.e can have a mixed cabin if only saver econ is available). Thus to get a waitlist situation, you'd be booking the saver J (even if no legs are in J) so that you can waitlist/clear into saver J if/when it becomes available.

This isn't true regarding standard awards, regardless of how the amount of miles needed compares.