Originally Posted by
khailea
Hi I'm looking to purchase flights from Sydney to Seattle (return) for two weeks in August (have to be there August 15) and then join the waitlist for an upgrade to business class using miles+$. Wondering what flights I should bid for. I'm wanting to book for Saturday August 8th 2026 from SYD to SFO and return Sunday August 23 2026 from SFO to SYD as the economy seats are the cheapest these days. I've read that Saturday is generally lower demand for business class so better chances. I've enabled expert mode and there are 0 under PZ or PN but is there another fare class code I should look for? Thanks in advance for any advice. Also does it make a difference to request the upgrade at time of booking the economy ticket or can I do that later without consequence?
Welcome to FlyerTalk!
PN is irrelevant to you. PZ would clear instantly. In general, the closer you get to PZ, the better. J9 C0 — very bad. J9 C9 D9 Z9 P9 PN9 PZ0 — as good as it gets shy of actually allowing an immediate upgrade. That’s not because of any change in the number of seats available — you could see each of these inventories on an empty flight. The difference is that J9 C0 means UA thinks they can sell all of the remaining seats at full price; J9 … P9 means they’re offering their deepest discounts.
Remember to check SYD-SFO separately from SFO-SEA (FWIW, there’s no chance you’d clear SEA-SFO on a Sunday and precious little chance you’d clear SFO-SEA on a Saturday). You want the inventory values on the long flight independent of your connection.
Tuesday and Wednesday are the lowest travel days. Saturday isn’t awful, especially eastbound, but Tuesday and Wednesday are better.