Here's an update on my quest to upgrade 3 C awards to F awards, ex USA to FRA. At T- 14 days, only 2 award seats showed on the United website. At T- 10 days, 3 C seats showed and 1 F. This continued until T- 96 hours when, miracle of miracles!, 3 F seats opened. I quickly called UA and successfully upgraded my C awards to F with the payment of a few additional miles.. and 30+ minutes on the phone. Current F load on my flight is now 4. Only 1 seat had been reserved prior to my score. So, it appears that it IS possible to get F awards close in thru *A partners. I do wish however LH would go back to opening some F seats for awards at 330 days. It certainly would save some of the angst
