Originally Posted by
5khours
Maybe it depends on your routing, but the two routes I fly a lot ORD-NRT and NRT-BKK are $9,000 and $4800 for PassPlus Secure. Same price as D (7 day advance purchase) and double the price of a Z, and only a 20% discount from full C. If there were some real discounts, it would be worth doing, but to pay the same price or higher and not have access to upgrades makes no sense. Does it work better for other routes?
I use Pass Plus Secure for fixed pricing domestically... mainly purchasing Y fares for what I consider to be cheap and using 5k miles (soon to be 7.5k miles) to upgrade them, or purchasing them within the 100-hour (1K upgrade) window, ideally when NC/NF is available to immediately clear for free.
If you're looking for particular routes that are a good deal, those obviously depend on your location and flying patterns-- I love SFO-ASE last minute for $558 AI/RT when the snow is good, and 3 of 4 (soon to be 5) Hawaiian UA destinations price at $668 AI/RT. As a 1K on a Y-fare, it's nearly impossible to miss an upgrade on those (SFO-HNL/KOA/OGG) routes. Also use PPS for SFO-PHL/JFK a fair amount, though it's not a screaming deal ($881 for a Y-fare)... mostly paying for flexibility and ease of upgrade on the transcons.
If flying internationally, you can still book and upgrade any normal fare class you want on UA or LH (and earn the pass plus mileage bonus) with your pass plus secure funds... you just can't take advantage of their fixed fares
and upgrade your flights.
Also, can we get Perks Plus talk out of this thread?... that's an unrelated animal.