I sat next to a woman on UA's Friday evening IAD-SEA flight. She had no status with UA, but had managed to upgrade at the kiosk using miles. I was pretty surprised, as I assume this is a fairly tough upgrade.

The strange part is that while a non-status pax was able to upgrade to F using miles, I (as a 1K) did not get my meal choice! Apparently they only had been catered to 13 of the chicken entrees (for a 24 F 757). I questioned whether there were actually 13 other 1K's / GS's in the cabin, and she replied, 'everyone here has 3 stars tonight', which obviously wasn't true considering that I was sitting next to a GM!