Frederik123

Since you are a UA-gold, I would give UA a shot. You might be able to upgrade your flight with miles and/or co-pay. It pretty much depends on your booking class whether an upgrade with miles is a good deal for your or not.
After a couple of flights you will make it to 1K and get 6 GPU's. This makes upgrading a lot easier

WineCountryUA

On any *A carrier besides UA, you will need to purchase a very expensive B fare to use UA MP miles to upgrade ( Star Alliance Upgrade Awards)

debracey

As a *G you'll get E+ for free at booking. DO NOT pay for it, it is almost completely worthless on the 747. It's only worth it if you are well over 6', otherwise I actually prefer the back of E- which is less crowded (and quieter, the flight attendants don't go through there as often.)

In terms of upgrades to biz, I wouldn't bet on it. Here's my predictions:

* Monday - Wednesday: 65% chance
* Sunday: 60% chance
* Thursday: 45% chance
* Fri/Sat: 30% chance

Friday and Saturday are basically impossible unless you're 1K.

If you can only upgrade one direction, upgrade the return. Most of the flight is during the day, so it is much more difficult to sleep. The flights to Australia leave very late (particularly if you're coming from the East Coast), so it is much easier to sleep.

-- Dan

WiscAZ

What are the chances i get an upgrade using miles on UA 840 on 8/16. I was actually put in a wait list and now it says "R class requested". I only have star gold status from US.

debracey

Tried that one many times, 840 is SYD --> LAX. On Fri/Sat/Sun it is packed. I stand by the numbers in my previous post.

It will be an at the gate upgrade if it happens.

docbert

Extremely low, probably even zero. Friday is a busy night, and as you don't have UA status (*G doesn't help here) you are very close to the bottom of the list.

WiscAZ

Are most of these people upgrading for free because of status or using miles/cash? Does the fact that I'm using 30k miles and $600 make me more or less likely? Thanks for the response.

docbert

Nobody can give you an exact breakout, but on a Friday night most of the cabin will likely be paid tickets. There may be a scattering of award seats. The rest will be people upgrading using either GPU certificates or miles+cash - depending on the flight that could be a few dozen people, or it could literally be zero people!

The fact you're using miles+cash doesn't affect your priority over others upgrading using GPUs or miles, but anyone with higher status than you will be above you on the list - and given that you don't have any UA status, that means there'll be a reasonable number ahead of you.

Duke787

Remember Friday and Saturday are most likely to have any business travelers that need to get to SYD/MEL for the following week (leave Friday night arrive Sunday morning and have the day to recover; leave Saturday and arrive Monday morning and go straight to work), and if any flight qualifies for getting paid J on company policy this one is most likely it.

WiscAZ

This is from SYD to LAX.

Duke787

Whoops my bad though same reasoning would apply going back the other direction. Business travelers who leave Friday at the end of the work week and arrive back in the US on Friday so they have the weekend to recover before going to work on Monday and ditto with leaving Saturday and arriving back in the US on Saturday.

hungarianhc

Here's a data point.

I just flew UA 863 SFO-SYD onto UA 839 SYD-MEL on Friday evening, August 2. I'm flying back on UA 870 SYD-SFO on Sunday, August 11. I am a 1K, booked on an H fare.

When I booked the flight about a month in advance, SFO-SYD had about 20 open seats in businessfirst. SYD-SFO had over 30. As it got closer, the seats available on SFO-SYD started to shrink very quickly. The weekend before, the seat map was only showing 7 open seats. Then boom. Monday morning my upgrade cleared in advance. By then, my only choice was an aisle upstairs. Still a great seat though.

The SYD-SFO segment cleared much earlier. It cleared about 2 weeks out. Neither cleared at time of booking.

This is my first time on the route, but the Friday night flight was packed with business travelers. If you're going to book this route on a W fare, I would recommend paying a bit more money for a V or H fare. I suspect that most people book into a W fare to qualify for the upgrade. If it's not that much more, I'd rather book into a higher fare code to give myself a chance. I get why the Friday night flight was so packed w/ business travelers. I'm one of them. I don't understand why the Sunday flight was way less packed. Perhaps it's because I'm taking Saturday as a personal day for myself in Sydney and business travelers come home that day... Actually, I bet it works that way... When you fly out of the US, you land 2 days later in AUS. When you fly out of AUS, you get to the US on the same day. I bet EVERY business traveler takes the Friday night flight and of all of us on that flight, the returns are split between Fri / Sat / Sun... all speculation, of course .

oskidunker

tentative trip for next year. tried a few days in jan and March. No upgrade availability. Is there some was to do search for , say , a whole month to find out when upgrades might be available? Any ideas other than entering all 30 days in the month seperately would be helpful.

Thanks

Kacee

Expert Flyer will let you search for R (upgrade) space a week at a time (select +/- three days). I believe you can get a five day trial subscription for free.

eirenyc

Hello All,

First time writer here. Excuse the poor grammer, and apologies if this was already answered recently (i did search before posting).

I have an upcoming NYC - MEL flight in November, and am wanting to upgrade my flights using 2 GPU's. I haven't used them before.
I am Gold UA, and have been gifted 2 GPU's.
I can book up to, and including E fare by my company, but not sure if it makes a difference regarding how they decide on upgrades ( i do know i need W and higher, but will it make a difference if i book E)?
I'll have to fly our Wed or Thurs, has anyone any advise on SFO or LAX as better options. I'll fly back Fri/Sat so understand it could be a slim chance of getting into biz.

Thanks in advance for any help.