A couple of months ago, you probably would have seen that there were 6 people with cleared upgrades when you were first on the list. They changed the process to be much less transparent; it’s now basically impossible to know how many customers were upgraded on any given flight.

There’s a good chance you would have been able to force through an upgrade on a couple of the flights you mention if you were Global Services.

Also, if you are regularly finding yourself in full-fare or near-full-fare tickets (booking classes M, B, or Y); as a 1K, you are eligible for an instant upgrade into PN class if it is available, but I believe you need to go into your reservation after it tickets and “request” the instant upgrade. Now, if PN = 0, that’s not going to help you much, but I thought I should mention it.

The CPU process is a leftover from the time when organic F sales were minuscule. There does seem to be a market for these tickets at the discounted prices they’re offering, though. If I didn’t have status, there’s a good chance I’d be buying F domestically, since the differential between E+ and F is often not that large.

Unfortunately, last-minute travelers definitely get caught up in the mix here. On flights when UA will clear upgrades in advance — which isn’t all of them, but which does happen — it can lead to higher-status, late-purchasing passengers sitting in Y while lower-status passengers sit in F. I’m not sure why they do it that way, but it’s been going on for years and UA hasn’t done anything about it, so it’s obviously not much of a priority for them.