Newbie RPU question
Just made Platinum and hence received my first RPUs. From what I read on here they aren't very useful, but I have a potential use in mind and wanted some advice:
I'm planning a future trip involving an EDI-ORD leg where I would buy an award ticket in BusinessFirst for my travel companion, and I would buy my ticket myself. In theory, could I buy (say) a B fare and apply an RPU, in lieu of buying (say) a more expensive P fare? If that's true in theory, how would I tell in practice whether this is going to work before I buy the ticket? Or put differently - if I buy the B fare and the RPU doesn't clear, is there a way to buy-up to P so my companion and I don't end up in different cabins?
(Apologies for being somewhat naïve about these matters - almost all my travel is domestic on discount coach fares, so these issues haven't come up before.)