Booking EWR-HKG, NO IMMEDIATE UPGRADE AVAILABLE, even though seat map is all blue. 1K. Should I pay for higher economy class to get better chance at upgrade? Does it matter when they start clearing the waitlist?

Blue? I think you'd be looking for red or yellow

Actually I think you want to see orange

Try this thread: HKG-US/US-HKG Upgrade Chances

Open seats on the seat map are blue.

In economy...

Lol I popped up an ERJ-145 seat map as a test.

Have you checked for R availability? Just because BF is empty doesn't mean you will clear immediately of course. If R is available, you could up-fare, apply a GPU, and clear immediately. If R is not available, you'll be hanging out on the waitlist where anything can happen. Also, as Kacee said, you want orange. Good luck!

Someone is going to say it right? I mean, at least one other person was thinking it...that this was a bonehead mistake? I'll show myself out.

I thought you were talking about the "only in Jeff's dreams would an E145 be flying EWR-HKG" joke... except unfortunately that probably isn't a joke.

We're flying IAH-FRA on Saturday on XN tickets. With GS, I applied GPUs both outbound and return. Return all cleared about 3 days after booking, six weeks ago.

I've been watching the fare buckets for the outbound. I happened to see PN1 yesterday so called immediately and got it (we're on three separate PNRs). GS agent was surprised it didn't process automatically, we're the only three on GPUs.

As of this morning (T-30), there are two BF seats (J2 JN2) only. There was ZN2 yesterday but that's gone now. I'll keep watching until OLCI to see if anything moves to PN.

My question is whether I should buy the upgrades (will they be offered at OLCI)? Can I then get my GPUs applied and the cash refunded? The GPUs expire in January so I want to use them now rather than cash.

Any other tips to try to get those last two seats before T-24?

Thanks.

No, the TOD upgrades are not usually into award buckets so they open up before GPU buckets (see the TOD thread for more). There have even been occasional reports of buying a TOD causing the instrument to be kept as well (although it's always returned when calling in) so keep your eyes peeled for the GPU to come back if you do TOD.

Did OLCI exactly at T-24, no buy up offers on the two remaining coach PNRs. Called GS customer service immediately - it took 20 minutes on the phone and a supervisor to assist, but got the last two C seats converted to PN and GPUs assigned.

I'm impressed with GS CS - personal, responsive, willing to help. A great start for vacation!

Tom

I'm a new UA 1K and just got my GPUs.

I had to book a trip ORD-LHR through Egencia (work mandated system) and got a K class fare out of it which isn't eligible to use GPUs on. Oh well, lesson learned.

Doing some research, from what I can tell the only fare classes that aren't F or J that are eligible to burn GPUs on are Y,B,M,E,U,H,Q,V,W. With that in mind, I was looking at booking a ORD-NRT with those fare classes and basically the fares were $600 more than the same flight on a K fare.

My question is: are you folks booking these higher fares to use your GPUs, or am I missing something?

Thanks in advance!

Yes. You have to book the higher fare classes and often it's a lot more money. Sometimes it's not so much more and sometimes the lower fare classes are not available anyway.

The problem then comes that very often, having bought the higher fare class, no upgrade space is available and you've wasted your money. You can get around this if you are lucky enough to see R space available when you book - but, IME, UA then prices the W class substantially higher on that particular flight.

Excuse me but that is [incorrect]. W-class is priced as W-class irrespective whether R is open or not.

W-class is anywhere from $200 to $1000 more on most routes than cheaptest coach; on some routes (BOS-SYD comes to mind) W-class might be the cheapest fare thus no upcharge.
I often book tickets without being able to confirm R; so far so good; SDC is your friend.

Okay, good to know. I guess this perk/benefit/reward isn't that valuable to me then.

Also - apologies for clogging the board with a new topic on this versus sticking it in the "specific questions" thread - I just figured it wasn't about a specific scenario.