Originally Posted by
WineCountryUA
UA will endeavor to sell the seats first and then if that fails open them up for up graders. Willingness to travel on non-peak business days greatly improves your chances for upgrades.
Originally Posted by
Kacee
Rule No. 1 is you have to search segment by segment to get a true R reading. Otherwise the domestic connector (which is almost always R0 these days) will zero you out.
To find TPACs with available R, search HKG-EWR. HKG-ORD. HKG-SFO. Same with NRT, except you can add in IAH, DEN, and LAX. TPE-SFO. ICN-SFO. HND-SFO. If you don't mind a China routing, you could also search from PEK, PVG, and CTU.
Monday to Wednesday are the easiest days to upgrade the eastbound routing.
If you don't find anything today, search again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next . . . .
Thank you. These are the sort of tips that I was looking for when I made my original post. I do have a few questions, so bear with me.
1) If I see a refundable W fare one-way IAD-SGN with R availability, should I lock it down now, and try to book a one way SGN-IAD later? Or would the potentially high price of a return one-way negate any savings I think I'm getting.
2) It makes sense to search segment buy segment to see R availability for the long haul flights specifically. Domestic upgrades aren't important to me. So if I find a HKG-EWR flight with R availability for example, would I then try to find a reasonably priced SGN-HKG-EWR-IAD itinerary with that particular HKG-EWR flight (in W, V, Q class, etc.)?
I appreciate the help.
3) Lastly, is there a service out there that will do all of this searching for me (for a nominal fee?)
