Not seeing much improvement from my perspective. I'm sitting at only 25% CPU success rate for the year so far - compared to 80% in 2012.

Although I just cleared DEN-LGA today which is my first mainline CPU success. I have cleared a few UX short hops and one Y-up instant fare.

Know plenty of people who were upgraded on YBM and when they change to another flight, they also go right into F and not Y, even though R was showing zero. Additionally, my colleague of my recently bought a K fare and upgraded using an instrument. When he asked about SDC, he was told that if he didn't clear on the initial flight, he would go in the waitlist. However, if he cleared on the initial flight, he would go right into F if there was a seat. As of today, I'm 0 for many, many flights out of and into EWR since 3/3 on CPU. These tickets are generally Q or below. LGA, 4 for many, many flights. The 4 CPUs were due to Y fares and cleared at time of booking.

This past week, I flew EWR to PHX, and bought my ticket 2 weeks out and was $330 RT (L-class). I was shocked that it was so cheap. Thought the fare would have been at least M. Outbound was middle of day on Wed and the return was Sunday red eye. Really thought I would have cleared both. Nope. T-25 hrs out, seats disappeared faster than I could blink. My colleage connected through IAH but went to Bos. All of his flights cleared 3 days out, and we had the same booking class. I've come to accept that if I wanted to upgrade, i have to burn miles or an instrument.

Just got the magical "Elite Upgrade Notification" e-mail from United.

Flying IAH-SLC tomorrow afternoon...and I'm just a Silver...and there are still more empty seats in F.

This is my second CPU since earning Silver in November.

That's my weekly route, and $330RT is an amazing fare even if booked well in advance, for 2 weeks out it's unbelievable. As i look through my spreadsheet, I've only booked one ticket at or below that price so far in 2013, and that was booked 45 days in advance.

I was on that redeye last night, and got the CPU at about T-36. I didn't get the CPU on Friday evening though into PHX, but that flight was full of GS travelers (assuming the dozens of folks that pre-boarded were in fact all GS). All in all, I've cleared 13 upgrades of 22 domestic legs so far this year.

I wonder if this route is being impacted by the new transcon competition from VX.

How so? VX doesn't fly to PHX to my knowledge.

My idea was that maybe the new (4/2) routes to the west coast are having effects that have propagated to other routes. They've certainly fundamentally changed EWR-LAX/SFO. The connection was mere speculation on my part.

That's because those fares clear upgrades into PN. Or into JN which is last-seat availability, for Y fares. While there are plenty of times where this is not the case, my general experience is that PN is roughly JN-1 or JN-2, so if there's even 1-2 seats left for sale on the day of departure, I can SDC on my M-fare and immediately re-clear. It's pretty nice.

GS on a M fare, did not clear SFO-ORD
 

am departure on a 739, when list came out at t-24 I was No. 1, 6 people got upgraded ahead of me... :o UA did not open up the P/R bucket at all after I bought.

My guess is that on a route like this we are seeing more and more Y fares with 40%/30% discounts as UA increases its discounts to keep corporate accounts from fleeing. The change fee increase to $200 will push more and more traffic this way (into Y) in Managed accounts and they will suck up the upgrades.

I expect to see more and more of this, just another e.g. of why its time to bail on UA.... :o

I know it is none of my business... But I still wonder how you achieved GS? Shouldn't you be the one buying that Y (Or even F) fare?

I had a lovely upgraded flight this morning. $39 and I was in F! (on Virgin America... I love VX's F seats... It was $39 because I am a gold, thanks to my status match from UA. Today's flight got me over the 5,000 point threshold - by April 30 - so my gold status will continue. Great to have some status when you're Kayaking! :))

If you look in the qualifications thread, I posted my stats :eek: I think that like me most GS - who don't get it via international F/C tickets - fly on a mix of fares. In my case mostly M/E/U/H, with a few F/Y/B thrown in, and an occasional lower fare as well.

I seriously doubt that there is ANYONE who is not on a "managed" corporate account (with a 30% to 40% discount off Y) who is routinely buying Y. There are certainly people whose companies always pay for F, but not many of them. I think its a complete myth that there are a lot of folks (or anyone for that matter) who just flies full Y. I have asked a lot of domestic GS and they all have similar patterns to me or have companies who always pay for F.

If my small sample reflects reality, then UAs strategy had a major flaw in it, they are chasing a group of people who don't exist.

I might add that my ORD-DTW upgrade on the 6:30 pm flight cleared. But what was more interesting to me is that this flight used to be a 757, and it was always full, with lots of folks connecting. Now UA is flying a crj700 (with the earlier flight being a crj200 and later flight also a crj700). Yet on a Monday, there was no one on the upgrade list for F, 5 folks were upgraded (the last a silver), and given that this is the prime time (monday, 6:30 pm) for travel, I was shocked by the small load of elites. I can only guess that having replaced mainline with RJs, and competition that is using mainline (or better RJs) that UA is just getting killed. I've flown this flight many times before and a year ago it always had 30 people left on the upgrade list with F filled to 24.

obviously, it is just a data point, but it stuck out at me. :o

Thanks spin - I don't look at that thread much 'cause there is zero chance I will ever make GS.

UA is cutting capacity, but still essentially has the same amount of aircraft flying the same number of routes... (more or less).

Where are they redeploying the bigger aircraft? Because, I agree, I am seeing more RJ flights on the schedules of my usual flights.

Strange - NYC-PHX is just about the only doomestic route I regularly fly when I'm in the states (not including PS flights). I usually go from LGA via IAH on the outbound & return to EWR on the non stop red eye. The last 6 trips (18 flights) I've been 100% on CPU's. usually between the 48-96 hour mark but never had it confirmed later then. t-24. The last 2 trips my fare was $340 which is about normal for this routing Out on Sunday, back on Thursday.

I remember the days not SO LONG AGO, right when we started doing business in Arizona where the same tkt was around $900 since we don't spend a Sat night. We have probably saved more money due to the old Sat night stay going the way of the dinosaur then any other reason .

Odd CPU situation for me....

Flying this Saturday (4/27) doing a same day turn SFO-LAX-CLE-LAX-SFO with my flight times at 06:00, 10:00, 18:54 & 22:56.

Woke up this morning with an e-mail saying my LAX-SFO upgrade cleared but the weird thing is that this flight is at t-116 hours :confused:. I looked at my flight SFO-LAX and it was showing R9 (with my other two flights showing R1 and R9 respectively) so I called just to see if there might have been a problem and the agent said that "weird things were happening with complimentary upgrades today" so she spoke to a supervisor who cleared me (and the supervisor cleared me for my other two flights as well :eek:)

The LAX-SFO is after midnight Houston time, and therefore clears 24 hours early. It's a known bug.