username

Since there are 2 flights a day between JFK and TPE now, availability seems better on awards. I was looking at November and there were award seats open in RL.

I am not sure about upgrades. There is something about you look at one inventory letter (Z?) and book into another (I)? Or, is it the other way around?

Kacee

Completely impossible.

unitedhandcuffs

can be done with LH I believe

username

LH and NH have anti-trust immunity and revenue sharing agreements with UA. BR does not.

randywei

I'm having trouble trying to use a SAUA for my TPE-SFO leg.

I booked a rt EVA B class Economy ticket from SFO-TPE from 12/27/17 - 1/14/18 and was able to use a SAUA upgrade for my 12/27/17 SFO-TPE leg (SAUA upgraded successfully on 2/3/17). The return leg of 1/14/18, however, was outside of the 331 day window listed on United's SAUA page when I initially tried to upgrade on 2/3/17.

Once I got within the 331 day window a few days ago, I tried upgrading my 1/14/18 TPE-SFO leg, but it keeps giving me an:

We were unable to complete your request due to a technical problem. In the U.S. and Canada call 1-800-UNITED-1 (1-800-864-8331) within the U.S. or Canada, elsewhere use the local phone number. (Error code: 110)

It was able to find my flight itinerary, but the odd thing is that it shows 0 miles to upgrade instead of the expected 30k miles.

I tried calling EVA and confirmed that there are Z-class upgradeable seats. I called United multiple times and have gotten the following replies:

1. Something is wrong with the system. We will file a high priority ticket. Please try again in 24hrs
2. The 331 day window just opened and we may just need some time for our systems to upgrade.
3. UA rep called EVA rep and confirmed everything for my itinerary looked fine for fare class and that there were upgradeable seats and that it should work. EVA rep thought that maybe because my Infinity Mileage FF # was on my itinerary that was confusing the system so they removed it, but still no luck.

Anyone encounter this problem before? The 0 miles thing is really confusing me. Thanks in advance!

OperaLover

First I want to thank all the people who have provided the valuable information in this thread. I am a total newbie to using miles to upgrade across airlines. I have read through all the posts in this thread because I also would like to book an economy ticket on EVA to fly JFK-TPE-JFK and then use MileagePlus miles to upgrade that to business. If I may summarize what I've gathered from this thread:

1. First check the UA website award travel search, and look for desired EVA flights to confirm there are class I or Z availability for using miles to buy business class seats.
2. Go to EVA website to buy class Y or B seats for those exact flights
3. Go to UA SAUA website to request the upgrade with miles

I hope that is correct. I do have a few questions I hope you experts can answer:

1. I can't seem to search for specific fare classes on EVA's website. I can just select Economy and then see a bunch of different economy options. Do I just try to click on every single fare options that pop out to confirm the class code? Or is there an easier way?

2. Is there a consensus on whether I should look for class I or Z when I look on UA's website?

3. There are many references to ExpertFlyer. I checked the website and I think a subscription fee is required to access fare class information. Do most members here subscribe to it because it is worthwhile? Since I don't fly that much I didn't think $5/month seems worth it. But many of you seemed to want to confirm the class I/Z availability on both the UA site and the ExpertFlyer site. I also just read from ThePointsGuy website that UA and *A pulled their award availability data from ExpertFlyer. Any advice?

3. There were some disagreement about how far in advance one can upgrade the ticket. There were several reports that said the award availability is only open 2 weeks before the flight. But the most recent post said 331 days ahead was fine. I suppose early is better?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide. This is a great resource.

ExpertFlyer Voice

That is not the case, *A is fully supported. The list of supported airlines for award searching and alerting are on our Help page here: https://www.expertflyer.com/sessionlessClassList.do

wickedlfe

Hey Randy - usually the Y or B fare is the "Eco Flex" one. You can check by clicking the fare you want and the the Fare Basis/Details button on the right side. After checking on United's website for Business Class Award availability on EVA, I would also follow up with a call to EVA to confirm that they indeed have Z class available on the particular flight you want to book. Having said all that, I will tell you that in my experience it is still not a 100% success even if both those criteria are met. The only way to absolutely know is to buy the ticket and try the upgrade. If it doesn't work, apply for a refund of the ticket on Eva's website within 24 hours and you'll get a full refund. There's a pop up that says it could take 2 months for the refund to go back on your credit card, but in my experience its usually 7-10 days.

I believe "I" Class is United's coding for business class award. "Z" class is Eva's coding for the limited upgrade-able business class seats. If you talk to United, you should ask for I. If you talk to Eva, you should ask for Z.

I subscribed to ExpertFlyer and was disappointed in the functionality. Even worse was their customer service. I emailed them a few times to ask questions around my search results and they were very rude.

As far as I know, there is not a limit on how early you can upgrade the ticket as long as there is an upgradeable seat to take. The minimal time is 24 hours (I tried to upgrade once the day before and got an error message that upgrades need to be completed before 24 hours before departure).

OperaLover

Thanks wickedlfe! It's good to hear about these personal experiences and the explanation of the discrepancy between United and EVA's class codes. Many thanks!

OperaLover

I want to report back my success using the United MileagePlus miles to upgrade the EVA Airline economy tickets to business class. As already been explained by this thread, I first searched for EVA Air JFK-TPE-JFK flights through United Airline's award travel search page. I found the flights I wanted showing saver business award available for both flights, and the system confirmed the fare class was I. I then went to EVA Air's website to book the economy class tickets. Only the Eco Flex option gave me the class B tickets. The other options were all cheaper but not class B or Y tickets. Before I booked, I also called EVA just to check. The agent told me to make sure to book class B or Y, and she said the online price quote is usually cheaper than booking through the phone. She also told me that she cannot confirm whether these seats can be upgraded because the upgrade is handled by United. But since I am booking far in advance (booking in May for October flights), and my departure city is in the US, I can cancel with full refund within 24 hours. I went ahead and booked the class B economy tickets on EVA Air website. Within 10 minutes I went to the United SAUA request website and provided the ticket information. My upgrade was confirmed immediately. I went back to EVA's website to manage my reservation, and the ticket was now showing Royal Laurel Class Z.

Thanks all again for documenting this upgrade method!

Kacee

^
Thanks for reporting back, good to know the upgrade tool is working.

thedaffodils

I recently booked B ticket for my BKK-JFK trip. Before I booked, I made sure to check ExpertFlyer that there was an availability on TPE-JFK upgrade. However, when I tried to upgrade using ROP mileage, it kept saying that there was no seat available. I can't even waitlist myself on the system through ROP website. Should I try to contact BR office or ROP to initiate the waitlist process? Or it's impossible to upgrade now since my trip is on 06/01?

IntlSalesGuy

I've just learned the hard way that ExpertFlyer availability ("I" fare class) does not always equal the # of upgradeable seats. I was in the process of trying to upgrade my family of 4 from TPE-SEA. EF said there were 4 "I" seats open, so I went ahead and bought 4 "B" fare tickets and tried to upgrade. Eva says there are only 3 seats available, claiming they fall under "Z" fare class. EF still shows the 4 "I" seats open, so it seems Eva has their own inventory to pull from. Best thing to do is call Eva and confirm what is available. It is possible something might open up when you get closer to the flight. You can't waitlist for this type of upgrade, so you just have to keep checking up until 24 hours before the flight.

dkerr

Were you able to confirm the three that were available? If you have not done that you probably should then you are only waiting for one more -- you don't want someone else to come in and take some of those that are currently available before you.

thedaffodils

I called both TG and BR, they said they couldn't tell me the availability of upgrade ticket. However, soon after I hung up, my upgrade request suddenly went through despite the fact that it was denied due to no availability 10 minutes earlier.