Originally Posted by WineCountryUA

Welcome to FT!, Julie Patterson

The waitlist is primarily determined by status, then fare and then other factors including when requested. So the flight change reset the request time but the major factors are status and fare. On a L fare (deep discount economy) you will be below essentially all other 1Ks using PlusPloints and all GSs (even on CPU).

The 7 seats -- is that looking at the seat map?? That may or may not be accurate. If you know how to turn on fare class inventory (Expert Mode) on UA (in your profile), you can get better data

5 out of 7 normally isn't great this far out. Some late purchasers will take seats, some will purchase cash upgrades, some late purchasing 1K/GS will jump ahead of you (higher status or higher fare). However, airlines are seeing lots of lst minute cancellations, so predictions are hard to make.