Originally Posted by
WineCountryUA
First, there is no difference in GPU or Mileage based upgrade requests. There are treated identically for a waitlist priority. While mileage folks may have a lower fare class and therefore at a disadvantage to GPUs used at higher fare class, the mileage folks can select a higher fare class ( and get a lower copay).
That's really helpful and good to know. I'll have to experiment with the award search engine a little bit more. I don't use it very frequently.
Given the default search engine choices and the additional fact that people (including UA phone agents or travel agents) almost universally look for the lowest priced upgradable fare it's really useful to know that you can exponentially increase your odds of the upgrade with a little more juice and that will work for both miles and GPUs. Still far less expensive than buying the tickets outright (even if you are taking some risk).
In cases like this trip, the cost of 2 business class tickets is prohibitive but i can afford to burn the GPUs and spend more cash for an much improved odds that the upgrades clear.