Originally Posted by
NickP 1K
My ticket was issued by our corporate travel agent so even though not united.com originated upgrades online were available
You have to click on the Instant Upgrade link BELOW the itin ; NOT try to click Upgrades on the Res Tools bar as that will apply other instruments/miles/money - WARNING: INSTANT UPGRADES DO NOT SEEM TO BE AUTOMATIC!!! YOU MUST GO INTO THE RECORD AND CLICK THE INSTANT UPGRADE LINK
What I see is this:
PN is needed for B/M Instant upgrades
JN for Y Instant upgrades
PN seems to match ZN which is standard First/Biz Awards - This also seem to match regular farecodes A and P
JN seems to match regular seat availability in F - so a Y instant farecode upgrade means if a rev seat is available it's yours (so it seems)
Upon confirming the upgrade on the link, A, P, PN and ZN all went down to 2
On these flights R and RN were zero'd out which are used for GPU (SWU), RPU (CR-1) and miles (RN for Elites) ; so if I used an instrument it would have gone to a waitlist
Hope this sheds some light - BTW Expertflyer.com shows all new combined UA inventory perfectly
This sounds like good advice. However, my experience buying a B fare yesterday (myself through CO.bomb) was that the final page *before* purchase completion asked me which legs I wanted to upgrade, I had to manually check the box next to each leg, and then my actual ticket showed 'United First (ON)' (for a trans-con 2-cabin). As you said, I ensured PN had availability on EF before booking and looked for the 'U' Instant 1K Upgrade icon+label beneath the fares. So, it sometimes works if you're willing to pay ...
I suspect the difference is that your ticket was booked via corporate trave vs. directly on the web site.