One of my takes on travel and upgrading is that there tend to be more elites at hubs. Thus, although I've been EXP from the beginning of the program and live in the SJ area, I often fly out of SFO to clinch an upgrade, since, IMO, there are less EXP's competing out of SFO (as opposed to SJC, which has a lot of EXP's) and we are chasing 30 biz upgrade seats on the transcons. IN fact, it is a breeding ground for operational upgrades (double, if you please) when I am upgraded to BIZ and have to suffer the ignominy of going to P to help them get everybody stuffed into the respective cabins.

If I were UA 1K in the bay area, I'd book out of SJC instead of SFO. I'm a lowly Premiere Exec, and that is nothing at SFO. That is, if you want to strategize upgrade probability.

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AAExecPlat; Lifetime AAirpass; 3MillMiles; UApremier-PassPlus