Originally Posted by
Kmxu
Whether or not the upgrade request will be cleared is another totally different question, especially, for general member and Premier Silver.
If OP's flight date is flexible, try to find flights with PZ space and get the upgrade request cleared immediately.
Good point, this was as Premier Plat.
I also once paid $650 to upgrade from PE to J (SFO-FRA). This was especially nice because since it was confirmed (not waitlisted) immediately I had access to the Polaris lounge in SFO (the only time I've ever had access).
This was quite a while ago. I only remember the details because I was recently talking to my friend about lounges, and remembered that I once had access to that lounge but I could not remember why, because I knew I had never paid for Polaris and I could not remember ever getting a UA award ex-SFO. So I searched my email for "Polaris" and my upgrade confirmation from 2017 popped up. At that time I don't believe I had any status (at that time I was flying VX/AS for most of my domestic flights; I only added UA as a secondary airline when I started having to go to Helsinki for work)
The moral here is that it is (or was) the case that you can sometimes buy PE and upgrade to J for significantly cheaper than buying J outright.