Booked EWR-FRA T class with the return FRA-EWR in R class (new Premium Economy product). At the time, the upcharge for Premium Economy on the outbound was significant and I was purchasing 3 tickets. Called Premier Desk (I'm Platinum) 45 days before the flight to ask about using miles for an upgrade of outbound to Premium Plus. Was told it was 20,000 miles per ticket but would be waitlisted. I took the offer and received confirmation using award code UP52T (flight still remained T class). No GPUs involved.
At T-24hrs at check-in for the outbound, the Premium Economy cleared almost immediately; and to my surprise, we were on the waiting list for Polaris, which cleared about 90 minutes prior to scheduled take-off. Fare class changed from T to PZ. Not a bad thing!
However on the return, which was booked in R class we never hit the wait list for Polaris after check-in. I saw after I returned that according to a Points Guy article, (
https://thepointsguy.com/news/united...-plus-polaris/) R class is supposedly upgrade-eligible, yet we never hit the Polaris waiting list. Curious as to why this happened.