kluau88

SEA-SFO
K-fare
Kiosk and OLCI, $159

Declined as we were sitting #1/2 and the upgrade list. 1 of us cleared.

Kacee

Buy-ups don't show as upgraded.

It is bs to be offered a buy-up under your circumstances though, so I sympathize.

aacharya

Not if they were GS or cleared immediately upon checking in. We should be careful about assumptions.

cmculp

Kaycee and Aacharya - learned a lot from both of you over the years...

Aachara - what you are describing is how inventory disappears while upgrades fail to clear. Got it. But someone who is 7th on the UG list while you are 1st and who then appears as confirmed while you remain 1st - isn't this a buy up by definition? The GS would have been ahead of me to start with. I suppose someone could have called to throw an RPU at the flight inside 24 hours (thus converting from a pending CPU to a confirmed supported upgrade and jumping the line, but who would do that for an hour flight?)

The last time I took a TOD buy-upfor Ms CMCULP, she showed on the UG list as cleared. So i am perplexed.

Kacee

My comment about buy-ups was oversimplified. It depends on how the upgrade is effected. In most instances a pax who purchases an upgrade at check-in should not show as upgraded. The seats will just disappear from inventory. Not an absolute rule though, as your experience demonstrates.

Note also that pax who are below you on the published gate standby list may be ahead of you on the EUA list, and that's the list that controls upgrades until check-in closes.

So there are potentially legit explanations.

But if someone jumped from number 7 to score the upgrade, while we can't be sure what happened, good chance it's for a reason you wouldn't like.

Chevelter

Yesterday I was helping a Gold friend who wanted to use his miles to upgrade himself & partner CID > ORD > SAT mid-November. W Class $460 tickets on RJ700s with 6 first class seats, none assigned. When we clicked on "Upgrade flight" the options shown to us were to upgrade using 20,000 miles or $79 per ticket. Well, that's a no-brainer. Used $79 to upgrade 5+ hours of listed flight time. (Flight A 1:13, Flight B 3:04) Now tix reflect fare class A, so both folks will earn 150% miles and PQM as well as sitting in FC on both flights.

The weird thing is, the first time we saw that we thought it must be a mistake so we signed out of his Gold account and back in again. Then it said "no upgrade available" (using miles OR money). So we signed out and back in a third time and the $79 offer appeared again and that's when we grabbed it.

What's going on?

UA-NYC

Looks like you can buy a P-fare for $460 actually, even though I don't see that -UP fare published anywhere. More SHARES wonkiness.

jonisflying

8/10/2014: UA423 MDT-ORD, UA759 ORD-SFO
UA Gold
$712 - declined
MDT-ORD cleared as CPU, 4th on list for ORD-SFO, but not holding my breath as F is fully booked.

Boo_Radley

You can also get people like me who drop an instrument after OLCI opens and jump the list. I do that to ensure I don't waste an instrument if CPU would have cleared.

STS-134

I was offered a TOD upgrade SFO-LAX-OGG (from W-class) for $250. Declined. But no wonder there were hardly any CPUs clearing. From LAX-OGG, there were GS, 1K, and PP members who were sitting in Y, and flights to Hawaii are supposed to be the easy ones to get CPU'd on.

cmculp

Yes, as I mentioned in the post Kacee was responding to. i do that too, although by the time it gets that close, R typically is 0. But as I noted, who would do that for a 1 hour flight??

skycrab

14/08/14 UA935 LHR-LAX
- From C to F, $6,199 (declined obviously)
- From Y to C, $947

JVPhoto

I got the $6,199 on my EWR-TXL trip...like do they REALLY think?

CashN

I paid just under $1K for a SNA-DEN-ANC

After my GPU's didn't clear on either outbound I thought I would check to see the cost to upgrade just the ANC-DEN leg. Apparently AK is a state full of large folks and my back was still sore from the 300lb middle seat man who took all of the left armrest and 1/3 of my seat.

The cost to upgrade a Q class was $940.

I haven't had a single instrument clear this year. You can no longer call within 24 hours and nudge an instrument to clear. I'm approaching the end of the year and all my starting GPU/RPUs will die off. Here's to hoping my last LAX-JFK this year clears.

Considering the only UDU clears this year have been hour long flights LAX-LAS SNA-SFO, etc... I may as well just be some shmuck by the bathroom. The 10 or 12 drink coupons used to be nice but not with 100 segments in coach. At least I get to pay for Direct TV in order to watch anything in flight...

WineCountryUA

as an 1K I have not missed a PS upgrade in the past 2 years -- 30+ segments. I do avoid Monday mornings and other peak times.