Originally Posted by
kpbanana
Does anybody know how this stuff works? For example, do they only offer these if there aren't enough people wanting to upgrade into C? I always seem to get an upsell offer going from SFO-PVG, but one would think the sheer volume of 1K's and 1P's on that flight would snap up all available C-class upgrade inventory (SWU's / RDM's).. just asking out of curiosity. Sorry if this has been asked before!
Actually the opposite. UA collects no incremental [cash] revenue on SWU or CR1 upgrades so the purpose of the upsell is to squeeze a few more $ out of those unsold seats. Of course they'll never admit this but they'd much rather sell a premium seat to a non-elite.