Originally Posted by
Kacee
On business routes, I find anything below an E or U to be extremely low odds for an upgrade. There's no way I would pay up to a W in hopes of clearing an RPU.
I do think even on "business" routes, upgrade odds depend a little on time, route, luck, etc., and sometimes the upfare might well be worth it. I've cleared Thursday and Friday morning SFO-ORD and SFO-IAD on W fares (once even on a CPU!), have never missed an RPU on the intl 772 when it flies IAD<>SFO, etc.
Obviously a Thursday redeye SFO-EWR is going to be disastrous unless you're a GS on a Y fare, but I do recall (as a counterexample) missing the CPU on LAX-CLE on an S then getting it on a W soon after.