Originally Posted by aaexpdxp

Booked ORD to TPE in a very expensive economy fare (B) for an upcoming trip. Agents have told me 9 Z fare class left and only 19 seats out of 39 occupied, so 20 business class seats open. I was able to confirm one upgrade but need one more - for my Mom. Been trying for 3 weeks for the SAUA (5x a day) - and nothing. (I don’t have Eva miles)

EVA still doesn’t want to release one award seat for SAUA so what I’ve done is booked United in a confirmed business class from an economy buy up fare + 30k miles as a backup ORD SFO TPE. UA is smarter by actually showing wide availability for business class award / buy up upgrades.

If Eva doesn’t release a SAUA, we will pay the $50 refund fee and they will lose > $3k miles for economy seats. Eva is actually LOSING money in the long run if people are flexible and can change to UA when Eva business IS widely available but they are too stingy with the Star Alliance Upgrade Awards. I’ve heard half empty cabins on EVA business as their revenue teams must not care or are not monitoring. Irritating. Maybe UA is the way to go from now on to get to Taipei from the Midwest. UA does have two flights a day from SFO now. We never had this problem pre covid (even with not as many Z class open). The ratio I think is 1 Star alliance award for every 9 Z class seats available. 1:9. Horrible.

Note: It is less than 7 days before departure and half of the business class is open and still no SAUA available. I will let you know what happens.