It absolutely can be done and a competent agent will have no difficulty at all. I've changed multiple ps confirmed upgrades through SDC. If at first you don't succeed, don't argue, just HUACA.

Forgive me if this was covered upthread. I'm flying r/t SFO<>SOF in November on a W fare upgraded with two GPUs. The SFO>FRA and FRA>SFO segments are on UA metal, and cleared into BF immediately.

The FRA>SOF and SOF>FRA segments are on LH. Am I entitled to upgrades (albeit only to intra-European business class) on these as well, using the same GPUs? I know LH honors UA GPUs on a day-of-departure basis, but I'm not clear on whether the GPUs I used for the transatlantic legs also apply in this case.

If so, do I call to get printed certificates? And if not, why not, given that technically GPUs should cover the entire routing?

They do not, because they are on a different airline, even if on the same itinerary. I'm sure the GPUs somewhere note this.

I just had an interesting experience.

Upcoming flight XXX-YYY-ZZZ.

At time of booking, R was open XXX-YYY but not YYY-ZZZ.

XXX-YYY is 45 minutes and YYY-ZZZ is 4-5 hours.

I didn't want to burn the RPU for 45 minutes and the site would not allow me to apply it to the 4-5 hour segment only and I was afraid to call in and let an agent touch my record, so I didn't apply the RPU. Instead, I used EF to set an alert for R space on YYY-ZZZ.

Today, EF told me that R=1 on YYY-ZZZ so I logged in to UA.COM, applied the RPU, and cleared into F on YYY-ZZZ. Now, waitlisted on XXX-YYY but don't care as it's so short.

I wonder if this counts as a queue-jumping behavior because I did something the site allowed me to, rather than asking an agent to do anything special as a manual process. I also wonder if this isn't possibly an even better process for securing an upgrade than wait-listing. EF works. Clearing into R on the web site works when R > 0. It's not clear to me that wait-list sweeps work consistently or properly.

Nothing wrong with exploiting UA's broken upgrade system to your advantage.

In theory R should never be greater than zero as long as there are people on the waitlist. As the inventory is released it should be assigned to the waitlist *immediately* and in order. Unfortunately we know UA's systems don't normally do this so if you get the EF alert (which doesn't check every minute, btw) then call or use the website and get the upgrade. It's your's for the taking when you apply the upgrade instrument.

-RM

They don't apply LH requires paper GPU's, one per flight, so even if they were both LH sectors, and if you had been upgraded with a paper GPU, it wouldn't be valid for the second sector from FRA->SOF. Having a GPU cover multiple sectors is a nice benefit UA gives.

Many thanks. I also learned that LH doesn't allow upgrades on W fares as UA does, so it wouldn't have worked regardless. Fortunately the upgraded legs are much longer. :)

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It has happened to me a couple of times this year. R>0 and I was first on the list but didn't get the upgrade. I now understand what might have happened.

This is a close call and there's no sure answer. People do clear automatically off the waitlists, and on some difficult routes - just check the "GPU Success" thread. So there is a possibility if you don't waitlist, you will never clear. On the other hand, just waiting for R to open and then applying the instrument is an easier process. You don't have to rely on finding an agent who's willing to clear you manually (or to redeposit the instrument so you can do it yourself). You also need to be fairly obsessive about checking EF, particularly since it is not dynamic but runs periodic sweeps (much like the UA upgrade system).

It is a close call. For me, on this itinerary, the deciding factor was to choose a strategy that didn't require calling since I have too much concern that an agent would screw up my record in shares.

Perhaps the most superior option is to apply rpu, wait list, and use EF as backup if sweep does not happen, but for me that just creates too much work.

FWIW, using this strategy I did clear a mid week hub to hub route that has been impossible for me to clear since CO took over. Not trivial.

I have a flight in a couple of weeks and 1 RPU and I'm trying to decide if I should apply it on the IAH-SFO-PDX or PDX-IAH (red-eye) leg. The outbound is on a Sat and the return is on a Sunday night and right now R=3 on the IAH-SFO (752), R=9 on SFO-PDX (738) and R=8 on the PDX-IAH (320). I guess the real question is as a plat on an L fare, how likely am I to clear the Sunday night redeye on a CPU?

If I applied the RPU to the return leg and the SDC'd to a different return flight, would I just end up on the CPU waitlist for the new flight or would I have any priority from the RPU being applied to the old flight?

Flying EWR --> HNL --> GUM --> HKG in March 2014. This requires an overnight in HNL and the HNL to GUM flight is the island hopper (this is the first available flight to GUM). If I try and redeem an RPU online EWR-HNL shows as one upgradable entity that is RPU eligible (waitlist only). HNL HKG shows as a second grouping with HNL GUM showing as not eligible and GUM HKG as eligible (waitlist only). I assume if I upgrade EWR-HNL and GUM-HKG online it will pull 2 RPUs… something I’m not happy about. Already called UA once and was told HNL GUM on island hopper not eligible… and also told GUM to HKG is not eligible (logic was it is Micronesia to Asia) Spent ages on hold while supervisors contacted. No resolution, other than do it online if it says you can do GUM to HKG. I know I can keep calling, but anyone have any idea what the “real” rule might be here?

I'm ding the same trip in April but no island hopper. When I pull up the reservation and select "upgrade" I see my itinerary as EWR-HNL, HNL-HKG and HKG-EWR. And each of these segments had a button to upgrade. I used one RPU for the return leg (HKG-EWR) to upgrade (waitlist) HKG-GUM and (confirmed) HNL-SFO-EWR. I called 3 times times about upgrading the outbound and got disconnected twice and the wrong answer the other time. Finally I was afraid to lose the R availability on the EWR-HNL legs so I went ahead and upgraded them. To make the rest of the long story short, I had a problem with another booking and got referred to the web representatives. After taking care of that problem I asked about this itinerary. The web person thought it was strange too and spoke to a supervisor. They theorized that it was the layover and change in date for the GUM-HKG that was causing the problem and she went ahead and waitlisted me for the HKG-GUM leg (unfortunately enough time had gone by that R availability had gone to 0).

I don't know if your itinerary is segmenting like mine is, but I would call the web help and see if they can help you.

RPU 2 weeks to post?
 

I just today became Premier Platinum for the first time. I wanted to UG one of my upcoming flights using my RPU, and was told that I would have to wait 2-3 weeks for posting of my RPU and nothing could be done to expedite. Is this normal?

My 75,000 mile RPUs posted in about three days this year.