Star Alliance Upgrade Award on EVA
 

Apologies if this has been asked.

I'm looking at LAX-TPE-LAX 10/24-11/2. I fly United and want upgrade the flights. In order to use a Star Alliance Upgrade Award, I understand I have to book EVA in Y, B or K.

Is this correct?
Do I book via EVA then request the upgrade via United?
Is there anyway to see what the upgrade availability is?

You can call EVA and ask for upgrade availability for a particular flight. After confirming availability you can then book the flight online with EVA. The upgrade request can be processed on united.com, with immediate confirmation.

I called EVA and they told me the upgrade looks very good so I booked the tickets. When I applied for the SAUA on United.com, it came back with no available upgrades. Thoughts on what I should do next?

There are other threads on this subject such as http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/star-...eage-plus.html.

Experience shows that upgrade/award availability for EVA customers is more generous than for Star Alliance upgrades. Since you can't waitlist for Star upgrades, you'll want to try to upgrade frequently.

EVA's own member upgrade != *A upgrade available

Last I know of, if you see J award space (on UA or Aeroplan), you CAN upgrade into that bucket (X?)

I am not an EVA member and had no issues using United miles to upgrade once I got off the phone with EVA's representatives. Did you let them know you are using United miles to upgrade? Not sure if EVA has different upgrade inventory for its own members vs. non-members

If you are still within the 24 hr refund window I will probably cancel the tickets and look for another flight with *A upgrade availability.

EVA said they only had 2 seats for upgrades. There's four of us traveling so I booked it as 2 reservations that way at least half of us would get upgraded. I will keep checking back with them if 2 more seats open up for SAUA.

Did it clear? It seems like they are holding award inventory until 2 weeks out, which sounds like is the bucket the upgrades come from.

Also - was able to upgrade around Oct/Nov of last year; it seemed to be the low season as there were many empty RL seats on the way out (not as many on the return, but still able to). IMHO, the LOS has dropped a little on RL. Safe travels.

Yes, all upgrades on *A come out of that bucket.

2 weeks out from YYZ to TPE and I can redeem 8 tickets (perhaps more). So yes, it sucks that it's 2 weeks out, but if I can redeem 8 (dummy booking) with no YQ, i'm happy :)

Where to credit miles when using a SAUA?
 

I have a LAX-TPE flight next week. The ticketed class was a B fare and I was able to use a star alliance upgrade award which cleared immediately. I understand that I now hold a 'Z' class ticket. It looks from EVA's website that I can't credit the miles from this flight to my home program of SQ. I had assumed that miles would be awarded based on my original 'B' class fare.

Here is the text from EVA's website (In reference to U/Z bookings):

"The mileage record with cabin class upgrade is based on the purchased fare class and can be credited to the Infinity MileageLands membership account only. It is not applied to transfer to other partner airlines."

Here is a direct link:

http://www.evaair.com/en-us/infinity...lassification/

Is my only option to credit to MileageLands?

Appreciate the help!

My understanding is that if you use IML miles to upgrade, then you can only credit to IML. It does not apply if you use other airlines' miles to upgrade.

As username mentioned, the EVA rule only apply if you use IML mileage to upgrade. If you use *A upgrade, then you can credit to your own program.

EVA Air: pls post your award ticket/upgrade experience here

I just purchased my EVA ticket (b class). I know my next move is to go to UA.com and request a Star Alliance upgrade. If it doesn't come back immediately as confirmed, do I need to request the upgrade every day? Thanks for your help.

Yup! You can use the methods above to see if there is a likely chance for upgrade clearing but at that point its probably faster just to use the UA website.

I got an error message in the UA website so I called and spoke to an agent. She said there was no availability. Surely there is an easier way than trying everyday!

Quick question. When did you book the flight and when did you request the upgrade?

I booked the flight about five days before departure and requested the upgrade about 30 minutes after making the reservation on Eva's website.

they used to be pretty good about releasing two weeks out, but now it seems like they are just releasing space on the less desirable flights that leaves in the evening...and even that's sporadic. The worst is that even a few days out with empty seats, still no award seats! Might be b/c it's peak months, might be just over and nice while it lasted...

@gpeso8, did your flight show awarad space on UA?

The flight requested showed award availability when searching on UA. I also called BR to confirm availability. I typically book one-way flights between LAX-TPE, with less than a week's notice so the upgrades have been convenient to me.

Thanks. I hope they open up more saua seats closer to departure!

Problems with the Star Alliance Upgrade Award Tool Online
 

Just wanted to share my comments from another thread on this topic. I am also having problems booking an upgrade when EVA have told me there are *A upgrade seats available. Others trying to do the same using United MP are having the same issue. See here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...rriers-29.html

I am booked in paid biz on an upcoming BR flight. If award space opens up, I assume I can book an independent Y/B ticket and request a *A upgrade, and if it clears, cancel and refund the original booking.

Any issues with the above plan that I'm not seeing? I would need to call in to cancel the current itinerary, as my ticket was once reissued, if that makes a difference.

Quick question, I want book a roundtrip SFO <-> TPE, however, since EVA only releases upgrade seats about 14 days before (I've been checking KVS constantly) I can only upgrade the first leg of my trip.

Is this doable? Can I only upgrade one leg then wait until they release more upgrade seats for my return flight to upgrade?

I do not want to book separate one-way trips, it would be way more expensive.

Thanks in advance!

SAUA only upgrades one segment at a time. In the context of EVA only releasing award/upgrade inventory at T-14 it is normal to upgrade your outbound flight first and then when space opens up you upgrade your return flight. No problem.

summer availability July-August
 

Can anyone help me with this? What is EVA SFO-TPE award upgrade or award ticket space in the summer? Will they continue to release ~2 weeks out or will they hold back space?

Would anyone with epxerience recommend I purchase B class refundable fare and see if upgrade space opens?

I prefer to use UA miles but can transfer citiTY to EVA as well.

Thanks!

Have no clue when inventory releases to *A.

The city->BR transfer question is complicated. With BR miles, you would upgrade from any PE fare (premiuim economy/Elite) to C for 35K miles one way (unless they are offering deals). So that is only the way to go if the price diff between a cheap PE seat and B fare justifies the extra miles.

But the BR based ups from PE are fairly wide open. I have never missed one. And in the worst case, it is cheaper than a B fare (I think, never know what other airlines code) and still has you in a PE seat (much better than the back of the bus).

Take a look at the EVA site, price fares.

Thanks for thoughts.

I've just accumulated way more UA then BR miles and problem is Y to J with UA is 35k with (Y,B). But PE to J with UA miles requires super expensive (K). This seems well described throughout this thread.

July/August award space experience on EVA SFO<>TPE?

Did your error message go away when inventory became available? I'm also getting an "Error !" when trying to upgrade on an Eva flight through the UA system. Points are taken and then added back to my account. Thanks!

So for SAUA to clear do you need Z or I availability on BR?

I. Z is for mileage upgrades.

Can't upgrade Premium economy ticket va Star Alliance (Air Canada)
 

I have a Premium Economy Class/L fare from SIN->YYZ. Apparently there is no option to upgrade Premium Economy fares as there is no matching fare class in the listed acceptable fares. I find this kind of hard to believe. Anyone else face this situation?

SEA-TPE-DPS
 

Hi everyone I have a few questions as I am looking into flying on Eva SEA-TPE-DPS on February 16th.

1. For using United miles to upgrade so I want to look for "I" or "Z" on EF?
2. If I wanted to upgrade using United miles, is "B" the correct code I am looking to book?
3. How would one purchase that correct ticket code for an Eva flight?
4. Once I purchase my ticket I then apply for the upgrade using my United miles is that correct?
5. I see through Eva's website a one-way business SEA-TPE-DPS is 75k United miles, is that a better deal than purchasing a ticket and using miles to upgrade? Not sure what the ratio is.

Really appreciate it :)

I think I may have the answers here as I have been looking into similar with AE miles ... please, more BR-centric people, correct me if wrong!

1. Any *A upgrades are looking for "I" or reward availability ... only BR(EVA) can use the "Z" category ... could have this wrong
2. Correct, you need a "B" fare (or "K", which is the highest premium economy, costs quite a bit more, but at least if you lose the upgrade lotto you don't end up in econ)
3. Safest is to book via EVA website, highest priced flexible ECON seems to routinely price into "B"
4. Apply the upgrade via UA website if using UA miles (I would use AE website for Air Canada's Aeroplan miles)
5. Not sure what you mean about EVA's website showing *any* redemption for UA miles, as far as I know you can only redeem EVA miles on EVA's site. Keep in mind for *A upgrades the miles required are PER SEGMENT. Not always the best if you have two long flights ... for just one long haul and a short hop, *A upgrades can be great value.

A question for others - is there still a trend of some seats opening up closer to departure or has that disappeared and what you see is what you get?

Just to add in my experience. I just redeemed for a YYZ-TPE (and return) SAUA for flights about 2 months ahead. Business Class redemption was not available on Aeroplan's website, and ExpertFlyer showed no 'I" availability. However, I called in to ask if the upgrade was available, and the call agent confirmed so. Purchased B fare on EVA's website, and redeemed my Aeroplan miles after on Aeroplan's website without any problems.

You will run into a married segment issue if you are attempting to use an SAUA on this itinerary.

​​​​​It will not work with BR if he purchases SEA-TPE-DPS as a single itenarary even if each each segment has SAUA availability.

Curious, did you confirm *A upgrades specifically were available? I just called for my flights and was told there were upgrades available, but that it might only be for EVA, she couldn't say for sure.
*If it were out of the US I'd just purchase, try and refund within 24 hours if it didn't work, but that's not an option departing from Canada