I understand the reason for revenue management holding back R which results in missed upgrade windows. if they want to make some more money ok, typically it hasnt affected me because on the routes i fly i was usually safe as a gold. but the problem i am now running into is that by holding back the upgrades until airport control and not clearing in advance, now i am competing with all platinums and their companions, and golds and companions on higher fares. The whole CO upgrade scenario before was that you were allowed to add a companion at the airport a couple hours before your flight, but at least you had the chance of clearing in advance. I realize this is different at UA where your companion in the same PNR was also listed for the upgrade.

So I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand it could work to my benefit if my wife as a silver had no chance of clearing but I could add her as gold companion and she would clear...but 85% of my travel is solo. And there is no reason I shouldn't have cleared in advance on my SANEWR redeye the other night because they didn't sell buy-ups...I was #7 with 4 available seats. Because they didn't clear the list until 30 mins prior to departure I missed the upgrade by 1 because everyone ahead of me added companions....so what is the benefit of having an upgrade window? I then attempted to buy up to first and wasn't allowed to by the GA. Basically it means everytime I don't clear in advance it means that anyone can just skip ahead of me if they are traveling with someone with higher status.