EWR-SFO: Best time of day for EUA?
 

Got a EWR-SFO transcon to book in end of July on a Saturday, what is the best flight time of the day to maximize the chances for the rare EUA?

Early morning.

I would say take the earliest flight in the AM , If F is fully booked there is a chance someone is out too late the night before and changes their flight or misses it completely.:cool:

Also look at what aircraft are operating that day ,
If there is a 757-300 , you have a better shot since there are more seats.
In my experience to SFO , i found it very hard to get an EUA unless I was on a full Y , but then again I never flew to SFO on a sat, always during the week or a sunday.

Why not late afternoon and hope that enough folks will get EWR'ed on their inbound connection to free up a seat up front?

ha ha , thats true too.
personally I don't like the late afternoon flights in the summer due to the usual EWR weather and long takeoff line, plus sometimes you compete with BF pax connecting at EWR from europe who have confirmed seats up front.

Your best luck is Saturday morning. I wouldn't hold out much hope, though. Other mornings, flights are quite often packed to the gills with elites and full Y pax.

Never. Don't even bother trying to book for an EUA (I have only heard about these mythical EWR-SFO EUAs on Sat. mornings from friends). I fly EWR-SFO and back 1-2x per month and I am 0 for 50-something and counting as a Plat, which includes H-fares. I have flown mornings, afternoons, evenings on every possible day of the week.

If you want an upgrade, fly to SJC. You are limited to 1 direct flight each day from EWR, but if the times work, you have a good shot for an upgrade as a Plat.

On a positive note, I flew back from JAX today in the front of the plane on an EUA, making me 2/3 this year on non-EWR-SFO/LAX flights...what a nice change from seat 14C. LOL

Rebigulator is right. Even as a plat I almost never get EUA'd EWR-SFO-EWR.

All the folks saying early morning are wrong, however. The redeye is your best bet for getting EUAed. Especially the saturday night redeye. That's as good as you're going to get on this route. Of course, I'd rather fly in coach than take the redeye (especially on saturday night!), but there you go.

In 2007 I was 7/18 on this route. This year I started out dry, 0/4, but I'm most recently 3/4. I'm plat paying low fares in advance, checking in 24 hrs in advance. My first class seatmates claim there's a recession, they're on essential travel only.

Best bet is to fly in and out of SJC instead, if you can tolerate landing on a grass field and the long taxi ride to any public transit. I've given up completely on SJC, the travel is easiest on me if I take the most convenient flight to/from SFO to reach my destination early. Upgrades are nice, but if I lose the exit aisle I'll be shopping for another airline.

That said, in 2007 I often took afternoon flights from SFO that arrived too late to connect international. Some fraction of the passengers up front either paid or used miles for international BFirst, and got the domestic leg thrown in. They don't take flights that connect poorly with international flights.

As it's been stated, EUAs to SFO and LAX, for that matter, are extremely rare at any time. SJC is definitely the way to go, I've even seen Silvers get upgraded to SJC on a regular basis.

I wouldn't call 11/26 extremely rare, but in 2007 I was cherry-picking the flights.

I've had empty seats next to me several times to/from SJC, anyone eligible was upgraded.

A friend who is Silver can confirm that the 7 AM flight both Thanksgiving Thursday and Christmas day is an excellent upgrade opportunity. :eek: He wasn't doing it for the upgrades--just how his schedule worked out.

There is no redeye from EWR to SFO (which is the flight in question). Only the other way around.

I flew EWR to SFO on 5/2 and got to the gate early so the 7 am flight hadn't left yet (same gate too). I asked to go standby and made it on however there was someone in my seat. Well he got upgraded to first thanks to me.

On the return the following Wed I went standby for the earlier flight and got the exit row with no one next to me which was really nice.

I don't think he was upgraded thanks to you. I think he was upgraded, therefore freeing one seat for you.