Scenario 1: Website glitch, United will fix and change it back to waitlist any traveller for PN when pluspoints/instrument comes from GS account.
Scenario 2: Intentional policy change, only GS travelers using GS instruments get a waitlist for PN, will eventually filter down to phone agents as well.
Website hasn't changed yet so scenario 1 is probably most likely. As someone that's unlikely to ever get GS, scenario 2 would be interesting.
https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/mil.../upgrades.html
Waitlist priority
Our system processes upgrade requests until three hours before departure. Any requests made after that will be handled by the gate agents. The waitlists are cleared in the following order:
- United Global Services® requests
- PlusPoints upgrades and MileagePlus Upgrade Awards
- Travelers with Premier status
- Fare class***
- United ClubSM Infinite and UnitedSM Presidential PlusSM cardholders
- United Corporate Preferred participants
- United Chase cardholders with $25,000 in annual spending
- Date and time of request
If your upgrade isn’t confirmed by the time you check in, we’ll add you to the upgrade standby list.
***On flights with United Premium PlusSM , we’ll process requests to upgrade to United Business® for customers ticketed in United Premium Plus (fare classes O, A, R) before processing requests for customers ticketed in Economy. If the request includes multiple travelers, then priority is based on the highest Premier status on the reservation.