eng3

Go on the united site, click on "Advanced Search"
select "LAX" to "MEL" (don't bother searching the domestic routes)
Select "My Dates are Flexible"
Select "1/1/2016" or whenever the earliest day you are willing to go is.
If your duration is fixed, select the duration, otherwise, switch to "one-way" search

At the very bottom, check "MileagePlus Upgrade Award" and "Non-Stop"

Then do the search. It will show you a calendar one month at a time. Click on each link for each day and open in a new tab. On my browser, you use the middle button.
If there is no availability, you'll see some text in red at the top telling you that, otherwise you are good.

Then repeat the process for the return.

Keep doing this every day or however often you can until you there is upgrade availability for both ways on the dates you want. Then book your flights. Then pray your Tcon flight doesnt get delayed on your outbound

This is what I did to get my upgrades

Mel Grant

Hello FT experts.

Here is my dilemma. My company has said we cannot bank as many vacation weeks after the end of this year so I need to burn up an extra month. We decided to maybe go to Australia Dec 10 to Jan 5 2015. We would fly from EWR to either Syd or Mel . I was hoping to buy an econ ticket and then use upgrade and co-pay but all flights for those dates say no upgrades available though the flights look totally open. Anyone have any ideas? should I just book and then waitlist or should I be looking at another star alliance carrier?

Thanks for the input

mahasamatman

That's the way United operates these days. It's very difficult to find upgrade inventory on popular flights, particularly if you can't be flexible about the dates.

Adrock1976

R space to SYD is hard to come by at all anymore. Once the switch was made from the 747 to the 777, it made for even less seats in J. I'm in SYD 3 or 4 times a year, and have never found confirmable R space at booking personally. I've only ever used a GPU. Miles and co-pay once. I also feel that there are lots of people on this route buying much higher fare classes then I normally do...well above even the minimal W to use a GPU...and of course, plenty of indivudals or companies flat out purchasing J. With only 40 seats on a long and popular route, it makes it tough. LAX-MEL seems to be a far better option currently, depending on the season, and often has R space confirmable at booking. Good luck, mate.

Delta3MM

My personal opinion is that you check every day for syd and mel, looking for R class (only look from the gateway - the non-stop flights - you may not see R space if you check from your home airport). In my opinion, there is no reason for United to drop fare prices this early, or perhaps ever since you can only travel during Christmas.

Now if you can be a bit more flexible with the dates, I would look at other dates. Specifically, I find R space a bit more open on mid-week flights.

I don't know what your situation is with respect to miles, but if you are plat or 1K and if you have the miles, go ahead and book a miles reservation, even if in coach. I mean, if you don't get the upgrade you have the flights.

The hard part will be if one way opens up and the other way does not. Then you have to make a decision - do you pull the trigger or not? The call is up to you. It's much harder when you are traveling with someone with less status. Everything is fine until the 24 hour mark, and then your companion is on their own with their own status.

Another reason I suggest you wait and keep looking is that if it does not ever clear, you are likely going to pay 50% to 100% more for your ticket, and still sit in coach. That is if you go the GPU route. If you use miles and copay, then they will charge you the $ upfront, but if you call enough they will return it later.

Personally, I see no reason to give them the money if the upgrade isn't available. Yes, you are playing "chicken" with the largest airline, but so what.

Also, you could consider flying somewhere else, like Singapore or Hong Kong and use miles to get from one of these places to SYD/MEL. That is if you can find upgrade seats to SIN or HKG.

Another possibility is to use a LCC like Jetstar to get to SYD/MEL but from HNL/BKK/HKG etc. Yes, it would be coach (or if you want to splurge for "first" it's kind of like economy plus). Then you just have to get to one of those destinations, and you might find "R" space to one of those. Plus you might like spending a few days somewhere else on the trip. The journey is what counts - not where you are going!

Billy

skimthetrees

Great suggestion. It does have confirmable upgrade space for the OP's dates right now. I would book through XXX-LAX-MEL and back MEL-LAX-XXX to get confirmed R space LAX-MEL and MEL-LAX. On the return you might even get LAX-EWR confirmed for 1 or 2. Then waitlist for R on EWR-LAX on the outbound.

Mel Grant

thanks for all the input..You are brilliant!!!

docbert

Except that's not what happened.

Ignoring any that might be saved for crew rest, UA used to run 128 premium-class seats to Australia every day (well, most days...)

Today they run 144 premium-class seats per day - 48 on each of SFO-SYD, LAX-SYD and LAX-MEL. They do lose a few of those to crew rest, but even after that the numbers are UP on what they were with the 744's.

This is a great way to let others leap-frog you. The reason that it's difficult to find R>0 on Australian flights is because people are waitlisted for it. The moment it appears, it disappears. If you sit there waiting and watching there's a good chance you'll never see R, but that doesn't mean nobody got upgraded - it just means they got the upgrade from the waitlist.

flyerbjorn

I haven't done a lot of research, but it seems to me like there is R space if you book way out. I was checking SYD-LAX in 6+ months and found a number of flights with R9 the week I wanted to fly.

LordTentacle

Its not even the end of feb and I've already confirmed 6 GPU's for upgrades on syd->sfo flights for later this year
All booked into cheap(ish) W Fares

One of them even includes a connection on SFO->JFK PS service which cleared into J on booking as well

WingnutSYD

Out of curiosity, what months are these trips in? And what days of the week are you flying?

LordTentacle

April, May, August, December

Combination of Thursday/Friday/Sat/Sun

Adrock1976

But it is what happened. My reply indicated SYD, not Australia. Moving from 52 J seats on a 747 to 40 seats on a 777, is less.

Kacee

It's not. R space has become easier on the Australia routes, including SYD.

docbert

And all those people that were flying to MEL via SYD now get to go direct, and people carrying on to locations like ADL, HBT and even AKL/etc are also likely to go via MEL(*), reducing the number of people flying directly to SYD.

(* I haven't checked recently, but when the MEL flights started UA were pricing it such that it was cheaper to go via MEL to these locations so they were clearly actively trying to balance traffic across the various flights.)