Originally Posted by
travelhive
….My wife and I are are flying LIS-EWR-MSP in Economy Plus, and were offered an upgrade to Polaris Business for a couple of hundred dollars...
I’m pretty sure you’re confused as to what you bought. A “couple of hundreds” dollars is definitely NOT a typical Polaris buy-up or upfare from economy. It sounds like you bought into F for the EWR-MSP leg only. If you look at your reservation, does it say “Waitlist” on the LIS-EWR leg? If not, you didn’t pay for what you think you paid for. UA offers (online/app) the “upgrade cabin” option and prices on a leg by leg basis and you need to select both legs to get the price (and upgrade availability - confirmed or waitlist) for both legs - sounds like you didn’t.
I’ve definitely seen (for example) “Upgrade this itinerary for as low as $79”. That price is definitely not for the whole itinerary - it’s the price for one leg of it. For me, it’s the SFO-LAS portion of a HNL-SFO-LAS itinerary. The HNL-SFO part would be $600 more or whatever.
I’m still confused when I read your post - did you use miles in addition to the upgrade fee? If so, the “couple of hundreds” is the associated fee with a mileage upgrade redemption request.