Thank you everyone one for all the perspectives on this situation.... all very helpful.... just booked a trip to Europe for next week. the client said go ahead and book business class... so I did and it cost $9K and I didn't feel like that was what they were expecting so I called them up inside the 24 hour window and let them know and they said that was too much... and gave me a $4K limit. So I canceled that booking, Since I am committed to flying on United metal, best I could do is book coach for $1700 (Q class) and apply my only two GPU certs and hope for the best. One of them cleared. But in thinking this through...
When I called United to book this in coach, I didn't specify a fare class. I might have been smarter to specify M or V or W, paid more for the coach ticket and gotten an instant upgrade. Thoughts?