Originally Posted by
bruinflyer
Is there a way to check for guaranteed upgrade space for GPUs or RPUs? Basically, do those book into a specific fare class, kinda like "I" is theoretically business class upgrades, thus if you see space in I-class then you can buy an economy and upgrade? I'm happy using the United site or using ExpertFlyer, for the record.
I'm asking because I'm trying to buy a route that is showing 100% availability in the front cabin (2cabin flight, literally no seats are booked yet according to the United sites' seats-available-per-cabin info) but is also showing zero GPU and zero RPU guaranteed seats (it only shows "waitlist").
Caveat: I know there are a bunch of threads on upgrades, I know there are a bunch of threads about EF. I have searched both here in the forums and via Google and I can't find this exact question, so if you know where I can find the answer I'll happily accept a link directly to the answer!
You're looking for R, not I. An empty cabin does not mean United doesn't expect to sell most, if not all of the seats. UA doesn't put out a lot of upgrade seat availability out there - doesn't matter that the cabin is empty - that has nothing to do with it - what matters is how United thinks the cabin will fill as the flight date approaches. If you want guaranteed (at the time of booking), look for R on united.com. Expert Flyer is of no use in that respect. United puts seats out for upgrades if it expects not to sell all of them. The only upgrades that might be awarded could be as late as the departure date..
Fare classes:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-airlines-mileageplus/1270547-decoding-alphabet-soup-new-fare-buckets-ua.html