Originally Posted by
Flying Machine
Curious to know if you made a decision and how it worked out
I cancelled my BE ticket and bought regular economy. I'm still not sure how it would have worked out because two days before my flight all non E+ seats on IAD-Europe got filled. With BE pax? With other pax? I have no idea. Then right before check-in opened a few of them opened up so if UA assigns BE seats about 48 hours ahead of time then I might have been given E+. If not then I was likely getting stuck in E- and having to ask a GA to move me. No guarantee they would have done that.
On the return I was able to book myself in a middle E+ seat and get that whole row to myself to lie down a bit. Poor mans business class worked well for me. And the offer to upgrade to J was only $799. Not sure if I would have gotten an offer in BE but I didn't pay it for an afternoon flight back to IAD. I also didn't have confidence that the European station would have moved me to E+ based on status because it's not staffed by UA employees.
-RM