Originally Posted by
coolcoil
2 - As a 1K you have a pretty good chance to receive a complimentary UG although on that long of a flight, I would probably use miles. Did you book it though COPA.COM? Agree. Though, as a 1K I have missed a few upgrades between IAD-PTY and PTY-MEX, so I would not count on it. Use the RPU's if it is really important to you.
Thanks for all the advice, everyone.
I had seen a few others reference that IAD-PTY is difficult, but I wonder if JFK-PTY is easier--with IAD-PTY, you have a lot of potential connecting traffic from UA as well as a lot of UA elites originating at IAD (since IAD is a UA hub). JFK not being a UA hub, I wonder if the competition for upgrades will be significantly less fierce (and UA elites connecting through or originating in EWR would likely fly EWR-IAD/ORD/MCO/MIA-PTY rather than make the cross-Manhattan trek to JFK).
Still, I may end up with a few spare RPUs/GPUs this year, so maybe I'll go ahead with burning them. Thanks for the advice on this and everything else.