Often1

To answer the earlier question -UP fares are "instant" but not "automatic." A silver booking a B fare can, space available, UG ahead of the GS CPU window. This is why there are so many GS in coach on the IAD-SFO/LAX routes. Lots of YCA and other corporate discounts booked into Y/B quite far out + intl. F/C pax inbound, all mean that most of domestic F is gone before the GS window is even hit.

As to reroutes, that's all a flight-by-flight matter. If you move up by a flight and 10 GS misconnect, you're in clover. In the reverse situaion, you're in steerage.

LarkSFO

My experience - My reservation on United.com said (red letters) that my reservation in Y is upgrade eligible.

I did not see a way to do it on line.

I called the 1K line and in about 2 minutes both of the Y segments on my itinerary were upgraded to F by the helpful and professional 1K phone agent.

UA F = clover? Sounds nice!

golfingboy

IME, when doing this you can either click on the "Upgrade Reservation" link just like what you do when you want to apply RPUs or GPUs to upgrade or burn miles for upgrades.

Or you can just click on the seat map and select any seat in F then click save/continue and follow the instructions on the screen.

I have not done this in several months, but I am pretty sure that process has not changed.

LarkSFO

Thanks!

The method to do it online was not immediately clear to me, and I like calling the 1K line anyway. The level of service I have been getting from the 1K line over the past 60 days has been as good as ever.

SkiAdcock

I didn't know that.

Thanks.

Cheers.

PV_Premier

real life experience as a gold - pre 3/3, upgrade percentage was about 40-50% on most routes except transcons SFO/LAX-PHL. post 3/3, 17 segments flown, 2 CPU -- one ORD-CID (30 minute flight on CR7) and one IAH-PHL which frankly shocked the hell out of me.

the link is just below the entire body of the reservation on the lefthand side, hard to find at best, took me 10 minutes to remember where to find it the other day even though i had just clicked one thru a few days before.

formeraa

Actually, US has already started offering the "If the seat is available, do you want to upgrade for $xxx." The email is clear that it is a space-availabe upgrade at y hours before departure, if an F seat is still available.

TA

by the way, how about this solution, if you're really buying full fare tickets all the time:

Buy your tickets in advance, even if you're not sure you're going to be using them. Use the refundability to preserve your options, including the upgrade possibility. You can cancel or reschedule the tickets if you don't use them, but you'll be in line for the upgrade if that's really what's happening on your routes.

LarkSFO

Do you have a link to the best US Air thread discussing this?

Interesting approach... You only pay if the upgrade space is available and you receive the upgrade...

This is what many people have complained about with W fares required for applying a GPU. (The fact that you have to buy the W fare and hope you get the upgrade, if it does not clear immediately at booking.)

If UA adopted this for W fare upsells / GPU's, I think most 1K's would be happy with this development.

UA-NYC

Yup - and while it's good for us who are "in the know", I can only imagine the hundreds (maybe a few thousand) of M flyers (and B too on occasion) every day who may not have had the auto-F upgrade available at booking, but then don't know to keep checking for space.

A more dynamic system would check for space in real-time and would process the auto-upgrade if space became available, but of course SHARES can't do that.

mike_plat

OMG...it can't be so. COdbaUA and SHAREs actually let you do it yourself easily?

garykung

Not really - GS.

In the reality, this is one of the routes that a lot of people burn their RPUs.

FlyWorld

I haven't seen these points mentioned yet in the thread -

1. If you are buying at last minute on a high fare, and that fare is not B (or M if you are 1K) then you should check the difference between your fare class and BM classes and maybe for a few bucks more, you can get Y or M, then get an instant upgrade. Note, though, that Y and M clear into another special bucket, so you need to check that bucket to see if the instant upgrade is available (but the UA web site should tell you that at booking time). This strategy might help you. I did this on a recent flight in a very similar situation and it worked well. I was on a trip that required me to go "lowest fare" so I just paid the difference (about $100) out of my pocket.

2. Are you Prem Exec or 1K? If the former, it's highly unlikely you are "always" #1 on the UG list. Your profile says the former, but I thought someone said the latter.

blue47

You cannot conclude that those upgraded ahead of you are lower tier or lower fare. This list shows several types of upgrades and does not consist only of CPU. Also, the CPU and other upgrades can occur at several times. It is certainly not unusual for a 1K to get the upgrade at 72 or at 24. I definitely see inventory being held for the last minute for first class sales and Y/B/M ups. Nearly every flight I look at has first inventory long after the last CPU starting window has passed.