Originally Posted by
kenn0223
Another, more creative option, could be to buy the ticket with UA only segments, wait for it to ticket, and apply your GPU. Then, within the 24hr cooling off period, call UA and ask them to change the ticket to whatever you wanted in the first place. A good agent may be able to do this 1) without a fee and 2) without losing your upgrades. I think the 24hr rule really only applies to getting a refund, but (IME) some agents will extrapolate it into a change fee waiver (for the first 24 hrs).
Yes, per discussion in posts #2 and #3,
transportprof decided against doing this out of fear of being scolded by a reservations agent for abusing the system.
My view is that this approach is not especially abusive if it is a faster way to achieve nearly the same outcome, particularly so because it's a way to work around a UA system limit (cannot use UA instrument sto upgrade a not-yet-ticketed UA itinerary).