Originally Posted by
st530
Small data point for the cheap-buy-up-to-F-instead-of-play-the-UG lottery theory. I'm on UA 1794 tomorrow (MIA-IAH at 6:30 am). Booked a one-way last week for $100. Applied PP. On Tuesday, at T-72, it was J7 so I forced through an upgrade, but noticed on the app that I could upgrade for $180. The next morning, at T-48, F showed as booked full with no UGs. Presumably either lots of buy-ups, or other GS forcing through PPs? (F later dropped to 14/16; just checked now and it's 15/16 with one UG shown.)
“No UGs” is meaningless. UA has stopped showing the checkmark in many cases; instead, when people are upgraded, their names drop off of the list. It’s entirely possible that there were PlusPoints upgrades or even CPUs that occurred during that time period.
Whether it’s general UA IT incompetence, or a designed campaign to make upgrades look less common than they are in order to spur buy-ups, I have no idea.