Originally Posted by
eng3
Without status or money, it's more about flexibility. Flexible in when you go and where you go. Like others said, mid week, off season. For example, trying to upgrade a flight to europe over the summer is fairly difficult even for people with high status. With most US airlines, you can cancel and still get the credit without paying a change fee. So if you must fly business, you can cancel at the last minute and try again on a different date and keep trying. On UA, for europe, I've noticed more advanced availability on return flights to the US. So if you are ok with one way only, do that. Also, check other airlines, you may find a lower price and higher quality. Unfortunately, if it were easy to upgrade, everyone would be doing it. There isn't any magic trick unfortunately.
Ok good to know. I'm on so many travel blogs and it seems like "everyone" is getting cheap upgrades making me wonder what I'm missing. But obviously people with more miles than we do have many more options. I did find a quirky upgrade for our flight back from LHR in May on the Dreamliner. We are connecting through Houston so it's a 10 hour flight for that leg. If I wanted to upgrade to Premium Economy it's $3300 pp but Business Class is $1500 pp which makes no sense at all.