Originally Posted by
teamdean
Yeah . . . a major pain. Just had a fantastic conversation with an agent at the 1k desk. Walked me through how they release seats based on revenue management, with cargo playing a large role.
I have it narrowed down to 2 flights. UA851 which has ~50 business class seats, 13 taken (11 sold / 2 upgrades released to 1Ks), and no one on the waitlist
OR
UA 2166/UA888 ORD-SFO-PEK which has ~50 business class seats AND 24 Premier Plus seats. So 74 comfortable seats. No business or PP seats have been released on this flight and only 3 business seats were purchased.
I was leaning toward the latter, but the agent said that since they have already released 2 seats on the first flight, they have probably met their revenue target and are likely to release more. So, I think I am going to roll the dice and take the direct flight. This is AGONIZING!
Amazing that agent was able to provide this much detail on the flights. The odds look very good to me. I've booked flights with a lot worse odds for my wife (Silver Premier) on ORD-FRA and cleared GPU upgrade 1 day before flight. Sometime you just don't have the luxury to only book when there is PZ>0. Make a calculated bet.