Originally Posted by iapetus

I don't think that there is much hope on the return (we're talking about UA # at 2:30pm, yes?).

As far as the outbound is concerned, it depends on which flight you mean. There is UA #2139 at 5:30am and UA #365 at 6:30am. They straddle the 6:00am time you quote. There is very little availability on the 6:30am flight, whereas there is a reasonable shot on the 5:30am flight. There are at least 9 seats available up front on #2139 ; and although PZ = 0, PN and P are both at least 1. There are only four seats in first available on #365 , and none of the upgrade buckets have availability; it's a story very similar to that on your return flight.