Originally Posted by
Jamester
Thanks findark, that all makes perfect sense. I forgot about the LAX and MEL possibilities, so I will look. Speaking of ANZ, in the past I have found SFO-AKL to be really hard to upgrade using GPUs (but it was probably when I was still a "lowly" Platinum, inheriting GPU from someone else). I found AKL-SFO to be much easier (since AirNZ is undoubtedly a much nicer airline). I should pay attention to the day of week, seems like.
Much appreciated again!
IME AKL is mostly a holiday destination and is usually a pretty easy upgrade.. rumor was that the 77W is scheduled more for cargo than pax. But yes, day of week matters, and I would always grid out all of the flights between the continents where you want to travel over all your possible days to get a sense of the inventory picture
In my experience the most common upgrades are LAX-MEL followed by SFO-AKL and LAX-SYD (the SFO-MEL flight is new since I last flew this route and they did cut LAX-SYD below daily) in both directions. But absolutely check in on all of SFO/LAX/IAH-SYD/MEL/AKL for your dates.