Originally Posted by
krispykrme
No.
I class is the only class to check SAUA upgrade for BR using UA miles.
BR upgrade inventory is Z class. This includes EVA own mileage upgrade and electronic certificate. But it doesn’t make all of the Z inventory for SAUA upgrade. Those are I bucket (which is subset of Z). Thus there are cases where Z class is available but SAUA won’t clear.
I did a demo of this last year at a Chinese travel group on FB. EF showed Z only but no I. SAUA didn’t work.
No, this is definitely not correct IME. I have never once used SAUA on BR when I>0 - i.e., every time I have used SAUA on BR, it has been on a flight where Z>0 and I=0. The reason for this is that I only ever use SAUA for one-way tickets when straight award redemption is not available.