I cleared on this route quite easily as a gold a little while back.

IME, this is an airport only request.

Maybe, although it is start of summer break and FALSE, your companion cannot be upgraded. You have chance to add companion at airport list, but not before.

0/9 out of SFO/BOS this year. Gold, soon to be Plat. Mostly L/K/G fares though.

A year ago I would say pretty good..these days not so much. I fly to HNL quite a bit and am missing upgrades as a 1K. My rule of thumb if I really want the upgrade then I use an instrument to confirm it. Pick good seats in coach and if you get an upgrade look as it as a bonus...planes that fly lax-Hnl are not great anyway so not like your going to miss much

Just cleared two CPU's this week. EWR-SAT and the return. Both exactly at the 1K window.

This is kind of the sweet-spot CPU for me. Flight is short enough that I would have never considered using an upgrade instrument, but long enough that it makes a difference in comfort for me.

Cleared DEN-LAS (x2) at the 96-hour window (actually more like 95 hours), both 1Ks on cheap G fares. Showing R9 with 15 seats out of 20 still unassigned (737-900).

2/8 on CPU for this EWR plat flyer. One of those was during that early January glitch that made me 1k for a day and the other was when I SDC-ed onto a later flight just so I could CPU.

DEN-LAS seems a lot friendlier than DEN-SFO... Wife and I (both 1K's) on separate PNR's currently at 92hours... R9, I9, no upgrades.

0/4 last week. The only CPUs I've gotten this year have been SFO-SNA. Even SFO-LAX seems unattainable these days.

What's left for 1K? Fee waivers and double miles. That's about it.

Why is SFO so disproportionately affected?

DEN-SFO and vv. are tough ones! Seems like a lot more smaller aircraft being utilized than before. Today I see 5 A320s, 2 A319s, 2 757s and one 738. In the past it would be mostly 757s with a couple of 763s.

Not sure... but United doesn't face the same competition in SFO for high-revs as they do in ORD, LAX, NYC.

Similar to IAD. It is a key hub for international connections. So you have a # of paid F seats on domestic flights that are taken right off the bat by corporate travelers flying TPAC in paid C international. Similarly SFO is the major airport for high tech and other O/D traffic so again you have paid C flying East or South in F to connect to TATL or South America flights. So you start with a lower # of remaining seats for upgrades. You can see this by checking the seat maps at T-7 days - many seats already gone in F.

Then you take the huge # of GS in SF, not to mention 1Ks, and the result is that every hub-hub flight has dozens of elites in the cattle car. Your only real shot is flying at a real offpeak time or to a 2nd-tier destination.

In January as a 1K, I missed SFO-SAN flights four times out of four. As a Gold now, I am so far down the list on that route it is laughable.

Intra-CA flights used to be no-brainers. Now can't make it on those either.

But I am dealing with it. My next trip is booked on Virgin America. If I have to sit it coach, I'll do it for almost half the cost.