As stated above, there is (virtually) no correlation between R space and CPUs, except in the other direction - I don't think I've ever seen a CPU happen when there wasn't R availability.

But the presence of R availability before, at, or after the "window" for a particular elite level is no indication that CPUs will be allocated at that time. Nor does the change from (e.g.) R7 to R5 mean that the CPU process only "partially" ran.

This one is on a G fare with some segments in S... I am mostly on W-T fares.

Possibly. I have noticed I always have this issue when there is a schedule change in my PNR and UA rebooks me automatically. On other PNRs, I either clear without breaking a sweat or I am far down on the list. As for "partially", two seats in E+ did indeed open up at the same time two seats filled up in F. Perhaps they only "allocated" 2 seats from the R bucket for comp upgrades. I seriously do not think the system is that sophisicated enough to "think" like that, but I could be wrong.

I just wish UA would correlate R and CPU space. So we know what to expect without wondering if the system is working as they say or not. Less confusion and more transparent.

Last week I had two flights with G fares. One cleared at about 94 hours, the other at about 70 hours.

I'm a gold and I've had K/G fares preclear. I've never seen anything to suggest that upgrades clear in any order other than the one that United described publicly.

I'm confused about what the sophistication is here?

The CPU bucket is just a hidden bucket that is (apparently) a subset of the R bucket. Lots of buckets work that way, this one just happens to be hidden.

Therefore, they are intentionally holding back upgrades rather than just giving it to us and holding only an handful of F seats? I seriously doubt PIT-ORD has a lot of walk up full fares on a Saturday. Same goes for ORD-SLC that just passed the 1K window. Putting me at the whim of a mileage upgrader, someone who secured a 'sales' RPU/GPU, a customer who is on a flight where F is full and decides to switch over to my flight, elite customers who got rebooked in full Y in IRROPs trumping me in the queue despite buying a lower fare, etc.

sCO was like that [one time on 545am LGA-IAH the flight only had 2 of 20 F seats booked and not one upgrade was processed until 24 hours out], I was hoping they would do more of a hybrid approach in the merger by being more generous with releasing upgrade space at the window rather than holding back more than half of the F seats until they give up on trying to sell those seats.

I am doing that as well. But, chances are still good that I'll make UA Plat this year due to international travel originating from DEN.

I have more attempts at CPUs and therefore TODs coming up shortly on UA, so I'll document that and update my sig.

More and more, my inclination is that UA has a TON of data piled up about exactly what they can sell F seats for as "TODs" (whether or not they are TOD, HOD, or ThOD) on every route, and they leverage that on each and every flight, when they think they can. I am thinking it has less and less to do with V-up or whatever other fares have been historically published in the market, and more to do with "I have 15 F seats open and a full boat in Y -- let's make a quick $2500 extra on this flight"

I am also starting to think that they know to some extent what we will put up with and we are upgraded somewhat accordingly almost on an individual basis. Case in point, I cleared LGA-DEN on a Sunday afternoon, at >24hr in advance. I would have never expected to clear that route (the only other flights I have cleared this year are ORD-SAV, DEN-GRR, CLE-EWR, and RDU-IAD). However I can no longer clear SMF-ORD even on a Saturday afternoon and I regularly see 1Ks in Y on off peak times, with what appears to be kettles in F. Even late last year, off peaks out of SMF to IAH and ORD were gimmes for me. So it seems like a little bit of quid pro quo going on from UA...who knows. Both of these one off observations sort of feed my suspicion that UA is trying to strike a very delicate balance between some meager upgrade percentage for elites to "keep us interested" and maximizing revenue with a huge database of what has sold and what hasn't.

Definitely not keeping Gold out of hubs interested. And what you are seeing is exactly what I am seeing. As I have said before I have already resigned myself to never getting an upgrade again if I stick with UA as a Gold flying out of SFO. But even out of SFO and especially DEN I have seen the buy ups happening at the gate and GS/1K's sitting in the back. So their balance needs some work if they are going to keep these HVF.

I've got a buddy who is Gold out of DEN and he gets more upgrades than I do as a 1K. I have only been flying leisure routes/times (Tue/Wed/Sat) this year and can't score a CPU for anything. My Gold buddy gets his upgrades about 40-50% of the time flying to various places including DCA/ORD/IND out of Denver. It's crazy.

Update. Received email at 12:50pm Tuesday for the 11:05am on Friday so about 70 hours. Flight went from 7 booked to 16 booked in F.

i am not interested either, but my other options are really not great. DL is down to two departures a day to ATL (one of which is a redeye), nothing to DTW, and two to MSP. at least AA has four flights a day to DFW, but with nothing to ORD, options are limited...and US only adds PHX year round. i have been trying to fly AS but the fares to EWR are through the roof. things get even more meager if i drive over to RNO

But don't you see? TODs are the means UA is giving you to overtake the 1K and GS pax who are your CPU bane!

Do so quickly. All carriers are moving toward UA's cash-now model.

My CPU's this year are a definite improvement over last. I cant for the life of me figure out the reasoning on how CPUs clear. Just yesterday I had a flight from FLL-EWR, Wednesday last week i was certain it wouldn't clear as there were only 3 seats available and the loads from South Florida to EWR the past 4 weeks have been extremely heavy (every flight goes out full in F and Y). Not only did i clear at T-72 but my wife did as well, im 100% confident that those seats would have sold before departure. Nice surprise.

Gee, is this what they call "improvement"?

T-96 about 20 minutes ago, 4 seats booked out of 20, F9 R8, not one single person upgraded at the 1K window.

About 10 people in the Y+ cabin - the flight's completely empty, what is the point of having windows if you don't upgrade people when R is available? Why not have a different fare class than R if you don't take it from the R bucket?

The secrecy doesn't strike me as accidental.