As a Gold I have been 0 for 25 for upgrades, whether EUA or battlefield.

Route ,day of week and time of flight are important factors to consider when hoping for your EUA.I almost never EUA Transcons or IAH-EWR so I attempt at ticketing time to upgrade using miles or a Y-up. It is also a difficult EUA when you book a flt with a 735.
Thed poster seems to have a good question concerning the discretion of phone agents to EUA for reasons other than Y-up or a mileage upgrade.

I also was under the impression that phone CSR's haven't had the power to process anything other than Y elite upgrades since the inception of the EUA system.

Happens to me all the time.

Let me guess: on the 32-minute flight from DCA to EWR?

Occassionally. That's actually a tough upgrade, as there is quite a bit of paid F travel on that route.

Not sure about paid F, but there is an ENORMOUS amount of paid Y, and all the elites on paid Y are getting upgraded on 735s and those only have 8 seats. It is a very hard upgrade to get.

WHAT!? 0 for 25 seems like some bad, bad luck.

What are your normal routes?

You're correct. It's probably more accurate to say that most passengers on that route are Y-ups or connecting J passengers from international flights.

Uh, oh . . . here we go.

Primarily EWR to SFO & LAX. I have also had this string of bad luck on EWR-IAH, EWR-CLE, EWR-PHX, EWR-DEN, EWR-SLC, EWR-PDX and EWR-SEA and IAH-BTR.

I have generally flown on the least expensive ticket available, the most expensive of which was H.

The funny thing is I'm one of those people who really doesn't care about first class, with all its rituals of coats being taken, drinks, elaborate meals, its pretenses and pompousness. If anything, all that stuff makes me a little uncomfortable.

I am just interested in enough space so as not to be uncomfortable, which CO coach does not provide for me with its 31" seat pitch and uncomfortable seats.

I don't dispute in the least that my run was due to bad luck, but it was a long run of bad luck and certainly not a complete fluke.

I am now no longer flying CO except when they provide the most convenient itinerary for the least expensive price.

I am very happy flying primarily jetBlue, where every seat is comfortable, I always get a good value, even if I have to book at the last second, and I never have to go through the annoying, nerve-racking process of wondering if my upgrade will go through or speculate why someone else got one instead of me (as many ft'ers constantly do).

I am so happy to not have to deal with any of that any more.

FYI, I bought this week's CO.COM special IAH-LAX RT tickets (two) today.
Then in the evening, I received EUA notification email for outbound (Saturday) flight - both tickets. (Both Plat, didn't split)
So you can still get EUA 5 days out on popular route even with low fare - you just need to pick up right date and time.

Yeah, and I'd bet that a lot of people on here who are not upgraded are doing EWR-SFO/LAX/IAH and similar at the most popular dates and times for business people.

Likewise, it CAN be easy to commute into a city with traffic problems. The answer is don't go at rush hour and you might get a choice of lanes. I used to commute 20 miles in 25 minutes and knew people who went at rush hour and spent a lot closer to an hour.

The reason the route was on this week's CO.COM special is because CO had a lot of excess inventory. EUA's flow freely on most CO.COM specials.

Can anyone confirm this is the method used to decide weekly specials?