Originally Posted by
mitchmu
1) I'm on UA.COM now and I cannot find any way to search for flights that have R space available. Now, the only option I've got is to choose a flight blindly, even if the flight leaving a few hours later has R space, I can't see it.
Click advanced search. There is a box you can check that says "MileagePlus Upgrade Award". The results page will show which flights have R availability.
Originally Posted by
mitchmu
2) As has been stated many times before here, anyone who books a ticket or calls to inquire will jump the queue while the 1K is sitting on the waitlist that never clears.
They'll never have a good answer for this, but the only thing they can say is the data scrapers can send out alerts to people to "jump the line." But it's a circular argument because the person requesting an upgrade at that time can stumble into the same thing.