Well I do my due diligence and hope for the best, and it worked out. Just transferred my next batch of 90K miles from Chase to United and will be checking it every day for my return flight. It's not looking that good since we're 9 days out and only 12 seats left.

You probably have flex or semi-flex tickets though so probably it would only be a small change fee to switch flights for the return. I would be checking alternate flights to see if any had upgrade space and would happily pay a small change fee to get a flight with upgrade space.

Someone posted on the Aeroplan/AC forum that reward seats appear to be opening up at T-4, I'd imagine upgrades could be on the same schedule.

Quoted:

I was just checking for upgrade for my return flight, and got this blank warning message. I verified all info was entered correctly, and tried on 2 different browsers. Anyone know what this warning message is?
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...3af6a34399.jpg

Just tried that and it's still the same warming message. My first flight upgrade when through fine with me typing just the first name and last name. Any other idea?

Are your flights round-trip on one ticket? If that is the case the format you used for the outbound should work for the return. United's SAUA tool has been known to be broken at times in the past. I would probably call United to check and see what's up.

Have you double checked all the information you are putting into the form?

All the info in the form is correct and no different than when I requested the upgrades for my departing flight. Couldn't find a good number to call on the website so ended up calling the main number, now I've been on hold trying to talk to an agent for the last 45 mins...

After talking to a United website person and many tries on my end, I finally figured out that entering the confirmation messed up the process and returned the blank warning. Once removing the confirmation, it showed this error code instead:I know I've gotten this error code when the information is not entered correctly, so I double checked everything and even entered the information exactly like EVA's "FIRSTNAMEMIDDLENAME LAST NAME" and it didn't make any difference. I'm running out of ideas of what to try...

What information are you actually filling in at this point? The UA site can be inordinately finicky on SAUA. I've found the best success with required fields and only putting in the ticket number and not the confirmation number.

Just as a note, there is a separate thread on this forum specific to SAUA on BR via UA. https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/eva-...itedmiles.html

The message is suggesting you call BR. I would call BR, give them your ticket numbers, have them verify everything is OK with the tickets, and ask them to provide the exact names they have in their record for each ticket. Are you sure you are matching up the ticket numbers properly to each traveler? Ticket #1 - Traveler #1 , Ticket #2 - Traveler #2 , Ticket #3 - Traveler #3 ?

Today I was able to get through the request page and went through these two pages:

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...d1af0262d0.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ff2cb6a800.jpg
It looked different from the screens of my previous upgrade, but it appeared that there was availability and the upgrade went through. However, miles weren't deducted from my account and my EVA reservation still showed economy. I even got an email confirmation from United about the upgrade but there was no passenger info and upgrade certificate number.

Called United web support and they weren't able to pull up my reservation (they totally did before) and advised that if there was no certificate number, than there was no upgrade. But they couldn't tell me why I was seeing these screens that appeared the upgrade went through, when on the back-end it probably didn't.

Has anyone seen these screens/had this issue?

Yeah it just doesn't work since the new interface.
You get confirmation page, confirmation email, but actually no upgrade. Certificate Number is also missing in the email indicating the upgrade is failed.
In fact, during the upgrade request, in the "Upgrade space is available" page, they still process your upgrade when you hit the cancel button and show you a confirmation page. Of course, your upgrade is still non existence.

If they didn't charge you for the upgrade I would be re-requesting that upgrade again and again. The worst that can happen is it doesn't work again. Best case, eventually it works.

From post 875 in the thread https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...-carriers.html :

Post 876 was merged by a moderator into post 875 so the post 876 link is broken now. Now Post 875.

Thanks, I've also edited my post.

Another data point for this thread since more information is better than less.

Called North American hotline, connected to an agent right away. Asked for "Z" fare availability, she responded that there was currently 7 seats available. Expertflyer shows no I seats available for this flight. Fare class is B. Departing in July. Return unknown but will be later in the year.

Bit the bullet and transferred 25MR points to AE miles. Upgrade went through no problem. Thanks everyone for all the help with this.

Some questions: As a person who never flies Star Alliance (domestic carrier is DL, live in DL hub) who should I credit the B fare miles to? Should I credit it to Air Canada to get more miles to upgrade my return so I don't have to transfer MR points? Or the fare is actually pretty expensive is United better?

B fare only earns 100% on United - since the United *A upgrade tool is broken and unlikely to be working anytime soon, I would credit to AC and run your upgrades from there.

I ran into the same issue. I called EVA and they confirmed Z availability on a TPE-JFK flight in November. I transferred 30K points from Chase UR to United and then used the UA SAUA tool to upgrade. Everything seemed OK and I got a confirmation e-mail - however, the points never deducted from my account and there was no upgrade certificate attached to the confirmation e-mail. I spent 45 minutes on the phone with UA who basically said they were aware of the issue and had a case open, but had no resolution. Guess I'll just cancel the EVA flight I booked and hope UA fixes the tool quickly...

The Air Canada upgrade tool is working - if you are doing a points transfer send them there and run the upgrade from the AC site.

I just did the AC upgrade but I still got the following error. I don't have enough miles in my account, nor have the AC member # on EVA flight. I don't recall I need either of these two conditions in the past. I also got the same issue from the United, everything confirmed but just no upgrade.

• We are experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again. If the error reoccurs, call the Aeroplan.com website support centre at 1-800-361-5373 and mention error code 140.SAU.

Hi all,

After reading a few threads, seems like buying anything other than the cheapest PE fare is wasteful since you can't use *A miles to upgrade from PE to Business. I'm assuming you can only do that with EVA miles?

I'm new, trying to do the research, just seems crazy to me!

Yes, unfortunately, you can only upgrade to EVA business class with the highest PE K fare. I also wished they would allow more PE bucket fares, (i.e. L and T) for upgrade to business class with *A miles.

You can book inexpensive Y or B fares and upgrade into RL from coach - or a K fare from PY.

Yes, we can book the cheaper Y or B fares to upgrade from economy class. I was just wishing the PY L or T fares could also be used. In case the upgrade doesn't clear, I'd still be in PY rather than Y.

The best strategy seems to be to check upgrade availability before you book and only book if there is upgrade availability so you know will not be sitting in Y.

Or, book Y through a travel agent, then try the *A upgrade. If no upgrade available, then change the ticket to a PE fare. Last Y fare I booked had no penalties for changing up to PE fares - check this with travel agent..

As a travel agent I can tell you it depends on the fare rules - in most cases, there is a penalty to change or refund the ticket, and there is no allowance for a free upfare to PY as in some cases this results in a lower fare collected.

In our system we have 24-72 hours of flex time in which we can void a ticket regardless of the fare rules - so we can issue a ticket in Y or B, and if the upgrade fails, void it before midnight the following day or midnight the next Monday if issued Fri-Sun and then redo the ticket in PY.

Note that while WE are willing to do this for a customer, other travel agents may not, and online travel agents will not do this outside of their 24hr refund window for USA purchased tickets.

I have read this thread up to March 2019 and jumped here to ask a question, hoping a kind person can help me.

B fare is mentioned for upgrade from economy to biz. K fare is from PE to biz. I got it.

But the UA's mileageplus site states Y fare is also upgradable to biz. So Y is fine for the upgrade, isn't it? A route I am interested in, TYO-> TPE->SFO books in to Y and it's cheaper than B. I thought Y is pretty much the highest among all eco fare classes except for PE.

Please anyone help me with this. Thanks.

michaelmorio

Y/B is eligible for SAUA on all carriers. K is an extra eligible class for BR specifically.

Eligible fare classes are mentioned in the UA-specific SAUA on BR thread (perhaps these threads should just be combined): https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/eva-...itedmiles.html

AFAIK, the only way to check the fare class on the BR website is by looking at the fare basis.

Or just have a TA handle the ticketing

United's SAUA site is working again. Booked a SFO-TPE flight in Oct and was able to successfully upgrade both legs via United's SAUA site.

Let's just hope this strike ends soon...

Because different *A loyalty programs sometimes have access to different award/upgrade spaces, so they don't want you to buy the ticket, not be able to clear upgrade, then demand a free refund from EVA. It's a CYA statement basically.

There has also been some rumor that BR may withhold some upgrade space for members of its own FFP, therefore opening up the possibility that SAUA may not clear even if Z>0. I don't recall any specific data points, however.

Any advice for a newbie here? I need to go LAX-TPE on EVA in November, I was going to use my UA miles to book the flight through UA economy...then was going to talk to BR about using cash to upgrade to PE. Does anyone know if this is possible or even a smart move, when booking through UA for award flight in economy which fare class is it?

My other option is to buy a higher class economy fare through EVA, then try to use my UA miles to upgrade through the SAUA site, does anyone know approx how many miles it usually takes to go from economy to PE using UA miles?

thanks for the help