NgatesSEA

Thanks as always for the good advice. I'll get out of coach any way I can! ... but yes, I meant miles+copay. I will call in to split and request the upgrade.

fightingsioux09

You're right that you will probably see more waitlisted than anything, but those are usually because of a domestic segment that doesn't have R inventory open so the default icon will show "waitlist" even though the longer Polaris segment might be instant upgrade. If you only searched for the longer international segment you might see that same flight with a green icon instead of yellow.

jsloan

Sadly, even on the international legs you're likely to find more waitlisted than anything else. However, you're right -- you should search for the international leg on its own to mitigate this as much as possible.

jonsail

Exploring booking a coach ticket and then doing an upgrade with points and miles. The upgrade seems to be based on availability. I only want to do the purchase if I can get an upgrade. Is it practical to book, request the upgrade with points and miles, and if the upgrade doesn't clear immediately, cancel within 24 hours for a refund? Is the chance of getting an upgrade with points and miles to clear immediately greater if booking far in advance or if booking close in? Thanks.

WineCountryUA

You can do an Advance Flight Search ("all search options"), select Upgrade Type, MileagePlus Upgrade Award. This will cause the search results to tell you if upgrade space is presently available.

the other approach is to enable Expert Mode which will display fare class inventory during flight searches and you need to look for R space.

rmlanman

I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this (no) and I imagine it has been asked and answered here before, but I was unable to find it in this thread.

If my wife and I are traveling on the same reservation and would like to upgrade using miles, is it possible to upgrade each of us separately? I'd like to use miles from each of our accounts, but I have a feeling that United requires everybody on the reservation to be upgraded at once. Am I correct in that assumption?

Kacee

You can do that, but you'll have to split the reservation.

StuckinITH

With both tickets in the same reservation, United needs R=2 to upgrade you. Meaning that if there is R=1, the upgrade will pass you and your wife and get to the next person in the waitlist.

If you separate the reservations, then it will upgrade each one of you separately when R=1. But, then, there's the issue of what happens if there's a travel disruption.

rmlanman

That's what I figured. Since I haven't booked yet, I'll likely just book them separately to avoid having to inevitably split them later.

Yep. R=2 at the moment. Travel disruption is definitely a concern, but we think it is a risk worth taking for this trip.

StuckinITH

It's a risk that my wife and I take on every trip as I need a clean receipt for work. And it's trips to Asia and Europe. The one time that we missed our flight to PVG, UA could only send me on another flight that day but not my wife as I was flying Business Class. So, I just asked them to put both of us on the flight the next day. But my wife would have had no problems traveling alone.

Actually, today was my lucky day for upgrades with miles + copay. At 7:00 AM, I received an email that my waitlisted upgrade request cleared for a flight to Germany next week. Surprising, as Polaris Business was sold 32/40 and they still want $10,500 for a roundtrip. At 10:00 AM, I received an email that my waitlisted upgrade request cleared for a flight to HKG in November. Polaris Business was sold 0/40 and I did get my favorite seat. Still, waiting to see if my wife will get as lucky.

747FC

Apologies if this is not the correct thread, but my question involves using mileage to upgrade on paid flights. I have not used this option in decades, so I'm a bit rusty. Here is my situation:

5 hour flight, HNL-to-West-Coast, followed by 1.5 hour flight. The mileage needed for the upgrade is 25k. Only the 1.5 hour flight is available for upgrade, and the 5-hour flight is labeled "waitlist only."

So if I pay the 25k, I am presumably upgraded immediately for the shorter flight, but not on the longer flight. Am I correct to assume that even if the longer flight waitlist does not clear, I am out the 25k?

Many thanks for your insights!

jsloan

Yes. If you prefer, you can call and ask to waitlist the upgrade only on HNL-west coast. Then, if it clears, you should be able to call back and ask them to extend it to include the short flight too.

ExplorerWannabe

I thought if only the short segment clears that you got miles refunded -- is that true for international flights? I am still waitlisted for my DEN-LHR and LHR-DEN segments but got cleared into United First on the short hop (CRJ) to/from DEN. I'm NOT paying 20,000 miles each for 20 min flights on a CRJ ...

findark

CR7 I assume.. would be quite the trick to clear an upgrade on a CRJ

Yes, the policy is if the "long segment" is Polaris-marketed, so it wouldn't apply for Hawaii.

IAH-OIL-TRASH