Originally Posted by
UAX_Brasilia
Well, both.
UA now offers
confirmed upgrades, and
unlimited upgrades. In the end, it's a huge enhancement for the 1K/GS, and something that no other airline offers.
And I can't disagree more with the notion that CR1's never clear at booking. I have been using miles for domestic upgrades all year, and EVERY flight has cleared, well in advance. Don't brush the CR1's under the table and insinuate they are worthless. With a bit of searching, finding NF and NC is easy, as long as you aren't hell bent on that IAD-SFO A319
I agree that with your first point about confirmed and unlimited upgrades being a nice combination, but beg to disagree with your disagreement about the second point. Or perhaps I don't understand your second point. You seem to say that CR-1s clear at booking, yet then say that using miles (and not CR-1s) for upgrades has worked out well for you. Maybe I'm missing something, but are you mixing apples and oranges here?
The more general point is that the big trend with CR-1s and SWUs is that they don't clear at booking nearly as much as they used to, even if there might be some exceptions to this rule. So a CR-1 will get us to the front of the upgrade line, but not provide a confirmed upgrade at time of ticketing. Nice to have, then, but not nearly as nice as they used to be.