Upgrade with Miles Availability
 

Is it possible to search availability for upgrades with miles + copay, prior to booking the flight?

All legs from AAA-BBB-CCC-DDD is on UA (W class).

I have enough miles to upgrade and willing to pay the co-pay, but how do I know prior to booking, there is availability in J for those legs for the upgrade? Is this searchable online or do I have to call in?

I don't want to be in a situation where I booked and paid for (W) and wanted to use my miles to upgrade but there is no availability (J)?

Please help.

When you click on make reservations, click on "Advanced Mode". At the very bottom, you will see a check box called " Mileage Plus Upgrade Award", Click that and do your search, you will see the flights that have seats available for upgrade with miles+ coppay

Additionally remember, the higher the fare class, the lower the mileage and copay requirement. With W, you are looking at 20K miles Internationally and 550$ co pay and I believe 20K miles and 75$ copay domestically

Upgrade with Miles Availability
 

On UA.com use advanced search and select the Mileage Plus Upgrade Award button just above the search button. It will then ask which legs you want to upgrade. It sometimes seems to only want to search two legs at a time.

where do u see copay amount for fare classes? is there a chart for that?

also side note do gpus and rpus need copay?

a friend mentioned a changes coming in February about needing copay for gpus but couldn't google it.

I hope you're wrong about the GPU thing. Do you have any other info?
But with Mr. $mi$ek, this would be "enhancement" that he would like.

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...2012-03-03.pdf

I've not heard of co-pay for GPU except for the case of flights out of LHR.

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...e-pricing.aspx

No copay on gpus as of right now. Use the above link to and interactive chart link there to figure out the cost in terms of miles and $$$

Check https://www.united.com/web/en-US/app...ardTravel.aspx for amount of miles+copay as mentioned above

1. Search using "expert mode" on united.com. "R" space is the upgrade fare class. If R>0 you can upgrade at booking. You should search segment by segment for the most accurate results. R may be available on some segments, but not others. If so, it will clear on those that are open and waitlist on those that are not.

2. I'm not sure why you're referring to W fare class. There is no requirement you book a W fare for a miles + co-pay upgrade. That is only a requirement for using a GPU on an international flight.

+1 even deep discount G, N, and similar fares can be upgraded ... just requires more $$$ then a B fare, for example.

Yes, but the lower mileage and copy is usually cancelled out by the higher fare.

I have been seeing upgrades on flights with R=0 and RN=0, which I didn't expect. Was my expectation wrong, is this anomalous, or is it typical?

thanks.

I must be missing it -- but can you please tell me how to enable the 'Expert Search' function on United.com so I can search for R (GPU) upgrade space?

I am guessing I start on this page:
http://www.united.com/web/en-us/apps.../searchRT.aspx

Thanks!

Hmm... I used this link (http://www.united.com/web/en-us/apps.../searchRT.aspx) and found that I can click a box to 'enable Expert Mode'. But the search page afterwards looked the same.

I am putting 'R' in to the 'Enter the Class of Service' box -- but then it errors out saying that 'R' is an 'invalid class of service'.

Any tips?

I think I figured this out. After I do a regular flight search, I can click on 'Fare Class' and it shows a dialog box with a variety of codes. I am looking R to be greater than 'R0'. So far everything I have clicked on is 'R0'.