Is there a typical timeline for when UA tends to open up award space? I have an award waitlisted for Couch to First for SFO-IAD in early October. I check daily and no dice so far. And yes, I know that nothing is typical with UA these days. Just hoping...

Not that I've ever seen.

Award travel wait list for a higher class of service
 

Does the rule below apply to all reward travel booked on any Star carrier using MileagePlus miles or only on United? Thanks.

You may redeem miles for travel in United Global FirstSM, United First®, United Business® or United BusinessFirst , even if the space is not available. In these cases, United Economy in the same award type must be confirmed, and the front cabin will be waitlisted. For example, a Saver United First award must be confirmed in Saver United Economy to be eligible for waitlisting. If the courtesy waitlist does not clear, it will expire 24 hours before itinerary departure, and you will automatically be added to the airport upgrade standby list upon check-in. In these cases, you will be confirmed on a space-available basis by a United airport representative at the gate once the flight has closed for check-in. For United BusinessFirst and United Business travel awards, the difference in miles will be refunded when the United BusinessFirst or United Business class segment of the trip could not be confirmed. Waitlist requests may only be made over the phone with your local United Reservations office.

United only.

You can 'upgrade' your star alliance flights to higher cabin provided
a) you already "paid" the higher mileage for the whole trip (ie one segment is in I/O class)
b) you monitor the availability yourself, and call in when it opens up

That is what I thought. Thank you for clarifying.

The explicit text from UA can be found here.

It is two bullet points above the text in the OP.

As the OP on this thread, I am happy to report that the F award we had waitlisted on UA metal did in fact clear about one week out. So it seems the system does work, at least some of the time. :)

Sorry to piggy back on an older thread, but I am currently waitlisted for I on a leg of award trip. Should I set EF alert to I, IN, R, or RN? Or all 4!??

Go for IN. It's always at least what I is (and very rarely, if ever, more than I).

R and RN are upgrade buckets, not award buckets, so setting alerts for them will be useless.

I and IN. R/RN are for upgrades into Business, not Business Awards.

if your itinerary undergoes a schedule change, particularly one that results in an equipment change, i have found those highly correlated with changing in the availability of award space -- sometimes for the worse but often for the better, even if it isn't necessarily an upgauge in capacity.

I personally would stick with the Couch. It sounds very comfortable.

Thanks, I set it up.

Also, you may want to avoid the couch section. I've heard they cut down the size to add some more rows in coach. http://lolsnaps.com/upload_pic/Bough...Life-41493.jpg

Just to follow up. We cleared into I about 3 weeks before scheduled departure.

I have a confirmed Award in I class (domestic).

I would like to take the flight that leaves an hour later but there is no I class available at the moment.

Is there any way I can standby for I for that flight while keeping my confirmed ticket? Or should I just keep monitoring and if it ever does open up just call in?