My partner and I are flying SFO <--> SYD for the first time in late December. We bought economy tickets in July and today we applied 4 GPUs (2x outbound, 2x return). I am United Silver, while she has no status (if you're wondering - the GPUs were a generous gift!).
Our top priority is sitting together, and secondarily, getting upgraded would really make this trip a treat for us!!
This is my first time using GPUs and so would really appreciate some advice:
1) Is there any way to know our current position on the upgrade list, this far in advance of check-in?
2) I understand we're hoping for "PZ" inventory. When does United add more PZ? Is it realistic to hope they would open 2+ PZ seats at a time?
3) Would it help for me to manually monitor for new PZ inventory on our flight? Or has the issue of eligible upgrades getting “stuck” been largely fixed?
4) Let's say it's T-24 and we're still not upgraded. Is our best strategy to delay check-in to the last possible minute (so our records stay together)? Or by not checking in, would we be excluded from the upgrade possibilities opening up in that final 24 hour window (perhaps controlled by gate agents)?
5) If we finally check in and our PNRs split, and then only 1 of us gets upgraded -- at that point could we "refuse" the upgrade so we could sit together? Or would we have to negotiate that situation ourselves with our fellow passengers?
Thank you all so much!
FWIW - here's what the availability on our outbound looks like at T-3 months..
