I will end up with 5 expiring RPUs, I could not get anyone of 3 (separate reservations) for ORD-LAX on Dec. 18 and LAX-KOA on Dec. 20. Tickets were purchased with RPU applied before summer.

I am having a harder time to get RPU to clear than GPU.

Same here.
I currently have 28 RPUs, all of which will likely expire.

Wow - that's crazy!

While some are still in play I could burn as many as 12 GPUs.

You will not have that problem next year.........

Last 3 or 4 years I've taken the 777 LAX-HNL, but I no longer see it as an option. Now I only see 3 flights per day LAX-HNL and all on 757. The early flights all appear to be the old 24F config, while the LAX 5PM appears to be 16J config with lay-flat, but arriving HNL at 9PM doesn't work so well for our schedule. So we are trying HA which departs LAX 10AM and arrives HNL at 2PM.

In years past, I often got the upgrade with an RPU, but that also changed (for the worse).

Earlier in the year SFO-HNL, SFO_KOA and SFO-OGG were the only routes I was clearing my instruments (GPU/RPUs) but for the past 6 months things have gotten tougher as tourism returned to the Islands. Had it not been for the Hawaii runs I don't think I would have cleared 3 instruments all year. I have been so frustrated I have jumped ship and have been using AS in and out of the Islands on my 2019 trips.

RT HKG-SFO, return confirmed at booking, outbound (HKG-SFO) has been waitlisted for about two weeks. Six weeks out, the numbers don't look awful (P9 PN0, booked 20/60), but PN has never opened in the month or so I've been watching, and the PP cabin has only three empty seats, which suggests to me there are a bunch of GS and 1K already waitlisted. Not interested in sweating this out, and don't like the timing of SFO-HKG in any event, so last night just bought a CX J ticket BKK-SFO (which I'll credit to AS at 325% RDM).

Still sitting on 10 GPU and 4 RPU. Doubt I will be able to use them all this year. I think this is mostly about strong demand for paid J/F (along with UA corporate discount pricing) rather than UA being unreasonably tight with upgrade inventory, but it's still disappointing that instruments have become so difficult to use. Watching the upgrade lists on UA869 and UA862 in recent days, these flights are regularly going out with 15-20 dead on the list.

There's been a thread on this exact issue since 2012. R / PZ Avail changes depending on how you search flights

GPU's confirmed successfully for me and my wife, EWR to HNL

i have a few RPU's that are probably going to expire this month

What the? Call and swap them for RPUs for this. If you have extra GPU you should have 2019 RPU available, then use the RPU and extend the GPU until April.

+1!

Also a gpu (if you need help pm lol) is much easier to get rid of then an RPU
in case OP didn't re qualify for next year.

these were from when i qualified last year. for 2019 I am only Gold....both my RPU's and GPU's say they expire at the end of the month. I dont have any additional flights planned this month

So, now GPU's are even more useless since... Now they will upgrade you from W Economy to Premium Plus, if you want to upgrade to Polaris, you need to purchase Premium Plus...

This is not true.

You can choose to use a GPU to upgrade from Y (any fare class) to PE. You don't have to do so. You can also choose to use a GPU to upgrade from W+ to J. If you do that, you will be given the option to list for PE also. You can decline that option and GPUs will work like they always have.

That's not what United said over the phone...