The same upgrade only cost about 35,000 miles using Shebamiles. Quite good value for money. I was offered a paid upgrade for $ 1,600 at the check-in counter in IAD.
And of course, no plane on this route will likely leave ADD or IAD with empty seats in Business. ET staff will make sure friends and family members are upgraded at check in/gate.

Yup, so long as they have the upgradeable fare buckets to use ShebaMiles... I've received op-ups on this route travelling as ET*G, but only from the ADD side.

Kind of an interesting case with the upgrades today. My wife and I are travelling on Sunday, but on separate PNRs. Out of interests sake, I did a minimum bid on my ticket, and minimum +$5 on hers.

At the 50 hours out from departure mark, I got an email that has a new upgraded ticket for my wife's flight. Not the usual email saying "You've been upgraded", just a standard Ethiopian email with itinerary & receipt as you get after making a normal booking/modification. So definitely appears that her upgrade cleared, though not the usual email saying so.

At T-47, after not getting the usual email showing her upgrade was accepted, and not seeing anything for mine, I decided to check on my reservation. Strangely my reservation now shows two bookings for the same flight under the PNR (one in economy, the other in business). Never received any sort of email notification.

Credit card charges are pending for both upgrades (which is a good sign). I'm not really concerned, and even if one or both upgrades don't actually clear, I won't be disappointed (flight is from LLW-ADD). Though if my booking remains like this I can imagine it will be a bit of a headache checking in at LLW.

Just thought this experience was interesting as so far it has gone against the norm from what we've come to expect.

We'll see how this shakes out over the next 40ish hours... Someone at central reservations might have jumped into their weekend celebrations a wee bit early ;)

UPDATE: I got the official email (16 hours prior), and my reservation appears to have been fixed (no duplicates).

I'll be flying on ET as a UA Gold next month. Strongly considering upgrading my ADD - LHR flight as I am daisy-chaining into the next trip 4 hours after arriving in London. After looking into cloud 9 upgrades on the website, the minimum offers are

LHR - ADD (E) $535
ADD - DAR (E) $200

DAR - ADD (U) $200
ADD - LHR (U) $510

On a cheeky note, does anyone have any experience with complimentary upgrades on ET?

New data point.

NDJ - ADD (Y) $350 (737)
ADD - BEY (Y) $350 (swapped daily)
BEY - ADD (Y) $355 (767)
ADD - NDJ (Y) $255 (737)

I obviously did not take them, as the ADD - BEY was swapping daily between a 787, 767 and 737 I did not want to take the chance.

Some recent data points :

JNB-ADD (Q) : $550 (738)
ADD-ACC (Q) : $340 (359)

Not quite sure why such a large discrepancy in pricing considering the flight duration is about the same and the product is far superior on the A350.

I have been offered minimum bids as followed:

BKK - ADD (K): $425
ADD - DAR (K): $205
DAR - ADD (L): $200
ADD - HKG (L): $500

Data point:

MNL-ADD (L): USD395 accepted

I'm booked to fly ADD to ZNZ in economy class on Monday and just got an email from ET/Plusgrade notifying me that my upgrade bid has been cancelled. I checked on the ET site and my flight has been changed from the ET813 to ET815. However Plusgrade is only letting me bid again on upgrading ET813. ET815 shows as 'Not eligible for upgrade'. Has anyone experienced similar? I'm wondering whether the ineligible flight will become eligible so that I can bid on it. Thanks.

Just an update on this... I never got a chance to bid on the swapped flight, so it appears the online upgrade system doesn't have the flexibility to handle flight changes.

On another note, I didn't get an upgrade on the ET701 LHR-ADD either based on the minimum bid, which was $510. So it's economy all the way, but not for want of trying!

I've just had another flight changed on me and can't bid on the new flight in this case either. ET should get this fixed!

Just an update, i won my minimum bids for both the BKK - ADD segment and the ADD - HKG segments. I did not bid on the shorter flights to and from DAR.

LLW-ADD (L) : $170 (77L) - successful
ADD-ACC (L) : $550 (359) - didn't bid

Minimum bids for an upcoming trip in November:

NBO - ADD (V): $170 (no bid. too short)
ADD - NRT Tokyo (V): $350 (bid at the minimum) ->for a 16 hour flight!
NRT - ADD (V): $350 (bid at the minimum) ->for a 17 hour flight!
ADD - NBO (V): $150 (no bid. too short)