FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Understanding the United Upgrade List Comprehensively
Old Nov 2, 2025 | 7:17 pm
  #371  
WineCountryUA
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Originally Posted by SeisSpeed
Looking at swapping out my Personal Club Card to Business. Got a question about the change.

(Question) Will this affect my upgrade potential? I have had great success out of everywhere but SFO/ORD this year and had heard slight adjustments to card holdings can make a difference?

FWIW...Reason for the change is the 1.5pts on general spend.

Thanks for any replies!
Having a Chase MP Card or not is a minor factor in upgrades.

Type of upgrade (supported or not), status, and fare class are the three most important factors

The full list

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:
  1. United Global Services® requests
  2. PlusPoints upgrades and MileagePlus Upgrade Awards
  3. Travelers with Premier status
  4. Fare class***
  5. United ClubSM Infinite and UnitedSM Presidential PlusSM cardholders
  6. United Corporate Preferred participants
  7. United Chase cardholders with $25,000 in annual spending
  8. 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.
As for cards mentioned in #5, UA no longer using the "infinity" branding, and there is no mention of "business cards". But in reality, the card will make a difference in only a few rare cases.
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