Originally Posted by
jjay
As a side note, I was traveling with my SO recently and we were both on standby for CPU - but then i checked the UA app and it clearly showed business class was full. SO's sister had just purchased her economy ticket few hours before the trip; surprisingly she got upgraded right around the time we went to board our plane. We are all premier 1k.
Status is the first tiebreaker, but fare class is the second. Your SO's sister likely had a higher fare class than you did, since it's rare to be able to purchase discount fares right before departure.
Originally Posted by
jjay
Flight status is showing there should be only 7 business seats available.
Incidentally, because I'm sure this will be your next question
, it really is true that -- at the time of your screenshot -- they were selling four seats and there are 7 available. The other three are blocked. The most likely reason for this is that the Premium Plus cabin was oversold by three, and they needed to upgrade three passengers from Premium Plus to Business.