Quick summary: UA 781 ORD>SMF last night has F cabin fly out 6/12 empty and shows on app noone on upgrade list...except I applied PP for that itinerary and should've been upgraded as a 1K w/CPU so am disappointed at multiple sets of failure on procedure.

This is a glitch which happened somewhere in the process that I hope United can fix and people can be aware about. My family of 3 (all 1Ks in our own right) normally doesn't try for PP unless we see PZ inventory to lock it in and we have almost 2000 PP that are hard to use. Saw a decent situation to use them flying Chicago to Sacramento and the F cabin was half empty a few days in advance that I was expecting the PP upgrade to go through cause I would get CPU normally with how the load looked. No such luck and a couple days before, the F cabin booked up full. That's life in the big city and no worries. However, upon take off my wife noticed that the F cabin was half empty and the upgrade list showed zero waiting for upgrades (can look now on the app even). Considering we applied PP and felt that as 1Ks, a CPU should've been given regardless, it was disappointing.

In the flight attendants defense, they probably just reference the app and if it shows noone on upgrade then that might be the extent of thinking about it. However, we were recognized as 1Ks during drink service so that should've been noticed in my opinion because the F cabin always has people who are on a waitlist somehow. There was also a little weather to delay some flights so i don't know what/why the late surge in F bookings didn't actually make the flight but they must've cancelled. On the website however, it does show the upgrade list w/my family at the top and checked in so there is a divergence between the website and app in this instance. I've made relevant screenshots of it all.

For the flight, I didn't want to mess with asking to move up there and just sat in normal seats. If it would've been international then I certainly would've, but I was fine to not make a deal out of it onboard. It's the multiple points of failure that is upsetting and never feel like anything is a one off. My family are huge United loyalists but the lack of PP use in the first place, not getting them applied in this situation and how we're already requalified 1Ks, makes me start to look to diversify. Last time I had something like this happen, I went from 100% United credit cards to less than half that. It also makes me wonder if the focus has been lost on each flight because company culture has set sites on the far horizon on things like the Boom supersonic plane, getting ecofriendly, etc....