For background, I’ve had UA Gold in the past and UA Silver from Marriott, but never anything higher. Currently I have no status as a MileagePlus(R) Member.

Recently I flew from Europe to SFO direct flight long haul on United. The normal Polaris plane with 1-2-1, 50 seats in J, Premium Plus, etc. At T-48 there were 12 seats open in J.

The cash price was about $1600 Basic Economy (M class), $1700 regular economy (M class), $2900 Premium Economy, and $5800 Business. I booked a ticket in Saver Economy (XN) for 40k points + fees, which gave me approximately 4cpp. Saver Economy was available consistently in the week before the flight up to departure. Assume for the sake of this argument that this was the most convenient route/time for me.

At T-27 a seat opened up in Premium Plus for 50k points, fees were the same. I booked it (so +10k points). Then, since there was ZN space available, I was offered a cash upgrade for $699 to J and took it. The direct upgrade cost for Premium Plus was $899 and for Business was about $2800.

It turned out that at departure time, there were about 20 people on the waitlist for Premium Plus and 20 people on the waitlist for J. No one cleared for Premium Plus and one person (Global Services?) cleared for J. They ended up selling almost all of the seats. I kept looking and there was one Premium Plus seat left (the one I vacated, theoretically), but they kept trying to sell it as a regular award for 120k points which wasn’t a good deal.

I’m trying to figure out what the actual value of status is here. Perhaps I got lucky and found an available way to upgrade, but anyone with no status could have done the same thing. At the time I upgraded to Premium Plus it was ON2, so perhaps there was another spot for 50k (ON can also be everyday award for 120k too). I understand that if I had status, I would be able to see better XN availability but since there was Saver Economy the whole time that’s a moot point. There was IN0 the whole time too. If there was no upgrade at all, UA Silver would have got me a bulkhead E+ at T-24. But other than that, if I had Gold/Plat/1K/GS and/or used PlusPoints or MileagePlus Upgrade Awards, I wouldn’t get an upgrade at all.

Recently I have had luck getting MileagePlus Upgrade Awards on long haul routes with low occupancy too. In the past, I’ve gotten domestic first class upgrades as UA Silver, including Hawaii-West Coast. Perhaps the future (present?) is just paying for the seat you want…
And I still want my Silver back, getting it soon from Marriott