I fly mostly in Asia on United, but am doing more in the US this year. Both my wife and I are 1K and I am a million miler (I know it doesn't make a difference for upgrade status). I have made 1K again for 2014.

We are booked economy on a flight from the Newark to Denver. We have both submitted a Regional Premier Upgrade for this flight. While others have been upgraded already, we have not. There is now less than 24 hours prior to the flight, we are checked in and no upgrade and others keep moving ahead of us on the list.

What gives? Is it worth using the RPUs? I have had the same thing happen on other flights where we have used RPUs and even with seats available 96 hours prior to the flight and others were bumped and continue to be bumped into first, but we were not.

Even in cases where we had a lower class ticket, I assumed that the RPU would help, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Thoughts?