.com will default to the lowest available R. Since SFO-EWR is apparently R0, that's what SFO-BOM shows as well.

So long as the two segments do not have the same flight number, the EWR-BOM will clear at booking and you will be waitlisted for SFO-EWR. If it is one flight number, you will need to call and have the GPU separately applied to the two segments.

I would recommend you book immediately. R9 is rather unusual on that route.

extremely unusual to have any upgrade space on that flight. Maybe its UA playing April fools with you :). But seriously - book it. You can worry about SFO-EWR later.

No. Book all as one. Once you request the upgrade the EWR-BOM will clear and SFO-EWR will waitlist.

I so wish Expert Mode had a disclaimer regarding searching segment by segment.

Thanks for all the quick replies. Just to clarify, the search isn't showing me SFO-BOM as a single segment. It is showing as two separate flights, SFO-EWR and EWR-BOM. But the EWR-BOM segment shows R0 when I search this way.

To make it even more strange, if I search for SFO-BOM lowest available fare (i.e., including fares that are not valid for GPUs), then I get a result showing SFO-EWR in W class with R0, and EWR-BOM in K class with R9. But when I limit my search to upgradable fares (W and higher), I get R0 for all segments.

There's another thread (actually, probably a few threads) on this issue.

It's not strange if you know the way the the site shows inventory. It marries the segments showing the lowest available on either flight and appends that number to both if its a through fare. Not just for R, for all classes.

So, in your case, your original search for lowest upgradeable for EWR-BOM has R9, as you saw when searching for this alone. But because SFO-EWR has R0, it shows both segments as R0 because it married them together at the lowest upgradeable available fare for you. Thats a through fare, and as already stated, if you book with an upgrade, it will clear on EWR-BOM since the availability is actually there on that segment.

When you are searching for lowest available (without regard to upgrade), it sounds like it determined it was cheaper to have a fare break at EWR where you can do W to EWR, and K onward (as opposed to having a through fare for the whole trip in W). Because there is a fare break, the segments are not married as above, thereby showing the different availability for each segment, including R9 for the BOM segment.

It is not strange at all. You're just not following the responses.

book the flight and apply the GPU, you'll be fine.

And do it quickly...EWR-BOM is a tough GPU , as bad as TLV!

really? cuz my last trip there this month had at least 5 open seats that went to nrsa

Amen! I have taken that flight a dozen times and upgrade space is tough to come by. Grab it and sort out the SFO-EWR waitlist later.

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wrong thread

Here's a good example of married segment logic at work for R space. R was not available on the last flight on one itinerary so it ended up not being available on any of it per the website.

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7210/...9c397267_c.jpg

Inventory mismatch for the same flight in search?
 

Has anyone seen this? Clearly it appears to be a bug, but which is the correct inventory? Does the flight EWR-BRU have upgrade space available or not?

http://i.imgur.com/6JhYUtD.png

It's not a "bug" (though some claim it is), its the way UA handles connecting searches.

Since the flights are through-fared, it shows the lowest availability in each class that either flight has for all flights. If you search the EWR-BRU segment on its own, it will show at least R3, possibly more. The 12:00pm from Chicago has R0, so that is projecting onto the BRU flight. The other connection and the BRU flight both have at least R3, one might have more. The only way it doesn't do this is if they are separately fared.

The best way to search for R availability is to search segment by segment for just the numbers. Then book it together like normal. If you try to upgrade when booking them (together as a roundtrip or whatever), even on the connection where it says R0, it will look segment by segment and upgrade any that do have availability. You'll go on the waitlist for the others.

By the way, there are lots of existing threads on this.