Yes, it is ticketed and, no, there was no e-cert, it was a credit card purchase. Just looked again and still no sign of the option.

F=0, but the 1K agent said 7 were open. She said there are 11 on GPU with me in middle.

Call.

Tell me I am mistaken.

If I were to purchase a W Int'l fare instead of K, and my GPU upgrade ultimately fails, did I just throw a couple of hundred $ down the drain playing the UA lottery?

Yes

No you are not mistaken. You pay extra to play the GPU lottery.

I shall not purchase W then unless I see that the fare is instantly upgradeable. Thanks very much for confirming my worst fears.

If those are your worst fears, then life is pretty good.

It is!

I cannot imagine that too many 1K's play the GPU lottery. Ouphf.

Sometimes, life necessitates it. Our company policy is to book economy, so when R isn't open, onto the waitlist I go. But I agree, for personal travel where GPU looks like a challenge, paying extra is not the way to go...suffer in Y, or book the J seat on miles.

Apologies if this has been covered somewhere:

Suppose you've got a two-segment itinerary.

Segment 1 is short, and R space is open
Segment 2 is long, and R space is 0

If you apply the RPU today, then it gets consumed and applied to the short segment 1, then theoretically maybe waitlisted for the long segment 2.

If segment 2 does not clear, then you've burned an RPU for a short flight.

What's the "best practice" strategy for this situation?

What I've done is to create an EF alert on the long flight, and then apply the RPU if R space opens on the long flight. Downside is the R space might be consumed by others on the WL if the WL actually clears.

If I applied the RPU now, it would go to the short flight, not the long flight, and then if the long flight doesn't clear, I've burned an RPU on a flight that was < 1 hour long.

Other thoughts?

Apply/waitlist the RPU to the longer segment only now (requires calling). If it clears, extend to the shorter segment. I do this appraoch on a regular basis.

Waiting for EF alert is a problem if UA clears the waitlist but R>0 never occurs or only occurs for a short period and never seen by EF.

1st time trying to use RPU, but I wanted to ask the experts first. Here's the situation:

I'm going to try to help a friend get upgraded on a one-way SFO-JFK flight (non-ps) with an RPU.

She's planning to fly on 2/1/14. I see plenty of R and RN space. When I do a dummy economy booking $179 and I view seats, it says business is all sold out. When I go specifically to buy business class, all the seats are empty and available. I assume some kind of block or restriction?

Anyway, if she books the economy ticket, and then I apply the RPU, it should clear instantly right since there is R space?

Also, when do you think should she book by before the R availability starts running out?

Thanks,

Tom9984

First, there are no UA flights SFO-JFK that are NOT ps.

Second, your comment about doing a dummy economy booking and seeing business "all sold out" makes no sense. Do you mean the seat map shows no available business class seats? That's because you're trying to book an economy ticket. You have to book a business class seat to see the business class seat map.

Finally, if you want to snag R class, book now. That inventory only decreases over time, sometimes very very quickly.

Thanks for the clarification and explanation. I was wrong in my OP.