Thanks. Can you clarify a bit for INTL flights?

Is it policy that no reduced $ upgrades (TOD) be offered prior to the WL being cleared, or that some seats are "saved" to clear the upgrade list but TOD upgrades are offered before the list is actually cleared?

Also, have the "upgrade shenanigans" been relatively rare, or is this something that occurs with some frequency?

I am a PMUA guy with no real experience flying CO. I am trying to figure things out...so thanks for the info.

UPDATE
 

My UDU upgrade cleared over night :). Not sure what to make of it but not complaining ;)

I often click on these e-mails just for fun. There's often no NC availability anyway, and everytime, the upgrade cost has been WAY more than the "as low as..." cost. They should probably program their system to not send them out when there's no upgrade space available in the first place.

I agree with one of the other posters...

If there are 5 seats and 3 elites, Shannon said they will sell 2 seats for ToD's leaving the 3 for the upgrades... here is what I don't understand, why aren't they clearing then 3 people prior to selling the ToD's upgrades?

It's because they are hoping that they will get some last minute sales at Full fare (which hey is completely fair, it's a business) and they want to hold open upgrade space in case of F passengers moving from another flight, which of course makes sense..

Basically elite's are not their first concern when it comes to this situation.

What they need to do is just stop this ToD's upgrade thing, it screws their best customers for barely more than the cost of the bag fees they would have received anyway.

First should always be priced AT LEAST at the cost of the E+ seat, plus 2 bag fees and then additional profit.

The bean counters are trying to be like a store, they're just not doing it right. It's the equivalent of 1 for $50 or 2 for $45 this is the reality that is United.

Full-fare business travelers appreciate it when a few F seats are held open until shortly before departure. If every flight of the day is F1, then you can change onto any flight of the day. By way of contrast, if they filled the cabin, making every flight F0, then a so-called "flexible ticket" wouldn't be worth much (because it would be very difficult to find any options open to flexibly confirm onto).

Yes, but the point is that should not be selling TOD upgrades in a way that has a good chance of denying upgrades to elites who were already on the upgrade list at the time of sale.

To the previous point about the economics been skewed, I've had the curious phenomenon lately of upgrading family members to First Class at ticket-purchase time (which I'd never do for myself) because the $75 was less than the cost of 2 bags plus an E+ seat ($83). This is way too cheap.

That's exactly my point, this isn't Walmart where you need to bundle the product to sell it (at least not F).

People have bags to check, they get charged, they have to pay it... people want to sit with more leg room in E+, they pay it, but to give them First class for less than the cost of all of it is ridiculous.

My girlfriend's brother and sister were flying AirTran from IAD-ATL after Christmas, $40 to upgrade to "business" ie domestic F, if they had 2 bags to check it was cheaper to upgrade to F than pay for the bags, what donkey makes that marketing decision?

You DO NOT make it so First Class is cheaper than the cost of bags plus E+.

The reason I say this is we get 2 bags free plus E+, if F costs less than all of those together, then they shouldn't be selling it but giving it to us... NOW if they want to add up the costs of bags plus E+ and then add a premium on top of that, it's less insulting.

But this goes back to the fact that the people making the decisions have absolutely NO economic sense whatsoever.

THIS is the bundle they should have: Upgrade to E+ and get 50% off your second checked bag, but don't giveaway F for less than the cost people are going to pay anyway.

United is a major airline, and the people in charge need to start acting like it or get some management/marketing people at the top that actually travel and understand the reality of what they are doing.

(rant over thank you)

The new normal on UA? This is for a 1K on a K fare, LAX-SFO on an A320 that is currently NF3 with 6 seats unfilled, 2 weeks out. FWIW, I don't expect to get the UDU.

http://i.imgur.com/ZJ2Xf.png

By way of comparison, if Alaska operated this route, you would be able to upgrade at T-24 for $50, http://www.alaskaair.com/content/mil...-upgrades.aspx.

And on Virgin America, you can upgrade at T-6 for $79.

Being able to upgrade at T-336 is unique to UA, but pretty smart and not totally unreasonable at an extra 30 cents per mile.

Your historical odds are 90%: http://www.udustats.com/Home/SearchR...planeType=A320

That is ABSOLUTELY NOT what that data means.

To me, that's them raising the price - didn't that use to be $65 (for a sub-500 mile flight?) Not bad - only a sucker would spend that for a 45 minute flight.

The bigger issue is when that price is offered by CO on a 4+ hour flight. That's a much easier one to snap up.

That is indeed more - I've had it offered for $50.00 a few years ago.

Unfortunately some posters seem to be confusing the low numbers they show to sucker you in with real offers. For example, I got one of those "from $65" messages a few days ago and the real price to upgrade turned out to be $1350!

Some are genuinely confused, others try to use it as evidence of shenanigans :td:

Tell me more!