Originally Posted by jsloan

The answer to this question is always that you should not expect to clear any waitlisted instrument. Then, the corollary is, if you clear, you should not expect to clear at any given time.

I don’t mean to be flippant: in past years, UA would have opened up upgrade space for flights between Christmas and New Years’ well in advance. In many cases, they are holding back upgrades further and further in the hopes of being able to sell the seats. This includes multiple reports of PZ space never appearing on wide-open cabins, resulting in upgrades being cleared at the gate although it had been clear for days that there would most likely be space available.