WineCountryUA

post booking instant upgrades are not available to Plats (which need PZ at booking)

After a CPU on EWR-IAD-SFO, I was unable to apply a mileage upgrade to IAD-SFO. The only option was EWR-SFO and the CPU blocked the use of miles

jsloan

It wouldn’t decrease, if that’s what you mean. It might disappear.

There’s no reason for a Plat who is thinking about using miles + copay not to apply it to the entire itinerary. You’ll get higher priority on ORD-IAH, and if it clears and IAH-SCL does not, you’ll get a full refund. Of course, it’s 99x more likely that IAH-SCL clears and ORD-IAH does not than vice-versa. . There’s no downside, as you’re not eligible for PN anyway (as WineCountryUA mentioned) and the copay+miles depends upon the regions and fare class (PE), not the individual flights. In other words, you’re not paying extra miles because you have an economy flight attached.

JFP94610

If I get a waitlist upgrade to business, will it automatically include both segments or can United give me one and call it a day?

One segment is 4 hours during the day and the other is 7 hours at night. My preference is both but the longer flight is the priority.

One ticket.

cfischer

They can be requested individually and they clear individually. If you request both then neither, one or both can clear. If the longer one is the only priority then forgo the shorter one and only request the longer one. Depending on how you upgrade, it may or may not make a difference, it also depends if the 7hr flight is an international Polaris-marketed flight (probably).
So if you tell us the route and how you want to upgrade we can give you more/better(?) advise

Repooc17

Under normal circumstance, each segment stands on its own in terms of upgrades.

There is no such thing as "United give me one and call it a day". One segment might clear, both segments might clear, and nothing will clear - depends on a number of factors including your status, your fare bucket, applied instrument or complementary. Even then, it would depend on the specific flight...the same flight on different days will have different upgrade probability.

WineCountryUA

As a UA Gold, I will assume you are using Miles+copay upgrade.
With miles you can not request separate, upgrades, the request covers the either direction.
There are two subcases,
1)With 7 hours, you maybe requesting a Polaris segment, if so if the shorter clears and Polaris segment does not, you will get 100% refund and kept the shorter upgrade
2) If neither segment is Polaris, then if either segment clears then the upgrade is consider fulfilled and no refund -- this is a killer when you have an 1 hour segment connecting to a 5 hour transcon.
With some effort, I have sometimes been able to get a refund for that domestic cases but other times no. UA does not offer the ability to waitlist for the longer non-polaris segment only using miles

Not if talking mileage upgrades, not everyone has PlusPoints

cfischer

Mmmm, been able to do that in the past by calling in. No longer working?

WineCountryUA

For some reason, it changed at the time PlusPoints were introduced. I'm about 50/50 on getting a cleared 500 only refunded. Additional issue if a segment clears via cPU, you can not apply miles to the other segment,

JFP94610

Currently a Silver. Lost Gold status last year. Upgrade would be miles and $. First leg is SFO to EWR in economy plus (B). Second leg is EWR to RAK in premium economy (A).

jsloan

Because EWR to RAK is marketed as Polaris, if SFO-EWR clears but EWR-RAK does not, you should be eligible for a full refund.

That said, your odds are better on EWR-RAK than they are on SFO-EWR.