I am trying to book tickets from EWR to LAS and use Miles for upgrades. I have checked many dates and there is nothing available. I then decided to try booking BF seats to see what was going on and lo and behold MANY flights w/NO BF SEATS SOLD but still no upgrades. Does that mean that there are many flights w/NO UPGRADE SEATS AT ALL?!?!?!?!? Isn;t this outrageous? What is going on? Does NO ONE CARE?

I guess you dont read the posts here at the CO Forum very often.

Very simple. EWR-LAS is a last minute market where CO can and does usually sell the 1st Class cabin. So CO isnt gonna let anyone have a seat even for Cashing in Miles when they know Most likely they will sell it at Top $$.

The same holds true for All its TransCons.

In order to beable to use your Miles for an Upgrade you'll have to be flying to aplace where CO hardly sells any 1st class tkts. MCO (Orlando) is such a mkt, however that will only be on those flights that wont be connecting to or from any Intl flight. As if its a connecting flight then CO wont let them go either hoping it can sell a MCO-XXX tkt in 1st instead.

That is not necessarily true. Last month I booked a ticket to LAS for this month and got the upgrades no problem, but I am sure it was an anomaly. It still seems EXTREMELY unfair that they have 0 tickets for the flight. They should at least offer 2. It would at LEAST help the value of the miles

sometimes they have them, its rare.. don't think the seatmap is an accurate picture of how many seats are sold. In addition, CO has a lot more data than you do, and if they think they'll sell the flight, they're not giving them away.

If you have status, you can waitlist the upgrade. You go to the top of the list, and may well land the upgrade. You really can't fault them for trying to sell the seats. On the other hand, you can fault them for being willing to sell you an easypass ticket for no $$ and lots of miles, but have no way to pay some $$ and use some miles for the same seat.

As the footer in my posts says, I AM PLATINUM and it means nothing. The EZ-PASS purchases show that the miles are really worth half of what they say.

I've noticed that the seat maps tend to be very poor indicators of real availability on the LAS flights. I've seen plenty of instances when the flight was completely sold out in F but there were 3-4 unassigned seats. This could be the casinos holding seats for high rollers (though not sure how they do it without a traveler's name).

Also, keep in mind that LAS is a big convention city, so there are a lot of business travelers too, and many of them are allowed to purchase F seats (or Y and instant elite upgrade).
As has been discussed elsewhere in the forum, CO often doesn't release upgrade or award seats until closer to flight time when it becomes less likely that they will sell the seats. Automatically assigning 2 upgrade/reward seats to every flight 330 days out doesn't seem like a particularly smart business decision in terms of cash flow.

You could also try purchasing Y and getting an instant elite upgrade, it's only ~$1100 on that route, not too bad (or full F is only $100 more than that and you get the 50% COS bonus miles).

330 days out is understandable but 60 days out is reasonable

Yes, but on a market with a high % of walk-up first class tickets and full Y tickets, I'd be happy to be upgraded at the gate.

Why should they have ANY available if they can SELL them for $$$??? This world is all about capitalism!!! Supply and Demand!!! Forcing airlines to have 2 seats available for mileage upgrades would be tantamount to a welfare state!

I'm Plat and when travelling solo, I've gotten the upgrade about 80% of the time--but almost always at the gate, no matter how many unsold seats are showing just hours before the flight. Also, in my case, when hubby travels with me, he likes the 'guarantee' of a FC seat, and with the fares around $1000 & fully changeable, we usually go for those. Last Thanksgiving weekend I bot hubby the FC seat, and attempted to use miles for my seat on the return (outbound I was EUA'd with no problem). But return was the Sun after the holdiay and even using miles with a B fare I ended up in coach. In fact when I called CO 24hrs before to check in and ask about being put on the waitlist, they informed me that I would have a better chance, just being on the waitlist, as if my seat hadn't cleared for use with miles, it wouldn't clear at all and I wouldn't be on any waitlist.

PS-- they did redeposit my miles with no problem.

Perhaps, but the truth is, Continental does not have the finest domestic First Class product while United does, and at least the latter airline allocates a decent number of seats for upgrades and award saver redeemption inventory even on flights with only 8 seats in F. Bottom line, Continental is competing with other airlines that have stronger frequent flyer programs unlike CO's NonePass. As far as I know, Continental is still reporting losses while United just got out of bankruptcy. Clearly, it is possible to make a profit and still offer a frequent flyer program that won't make your elite members feel they are being cheated of the loyalty miles they have accrued.