ZZYZXROAD

RPU's are useless. Never ever ever clear. Stinks but oh well.

MostlyUA

I spend almost all the RPUs and all the GPUs I receive. I have not had any expire on me unused.

nomad420

Certainly if you are flexible and looking at certain routes you can use these upgrade instruments. But for some, myself included, who are locked into certain times and flights ether related to business or home base these rarely clear. For example I typically fly SFO to Hawaii for business and other reasons, I apply an upgrade instrument ALL the time at the time of booking and I would say one in five clear. From the posts above I think many would agree flight in and out of Hawaii are TYPICALLY very tough to clear upgrades on. Other runs I do are SFO-BOS, SFO-EWR, SFO-DEN, SFO-ORD all can be tough to clear on as well. Again, this will often depend on the time and day you are traveling. The AM flight into BOS out of SFO almost never cleared for me yet I know others have said they have luck on the PM flight. I see many using them on TPACs and TATLs, I always try but I almost never see R space available when I have to or would prefer to travel. Even when I am traveling on vacation and I may have a bit more flexibility I have found this tough. I now just end up buying a C class ticket and don't risk sitting in E+ on some multi-hour flight (ie. SFO-SIN). I have had some luck with booking TATLs and TPACs with *A carriers and also have found the pricing at times better when I buy a business class/F ticket but this has some negative consequences as well (dollars don't count towards GS status).
While this year is young I will see how things go but not overly optimistic. Good luck to all.

Jimbo2552

No RPU on tonight's HNL - SFO... and using RPUs is a new thing for me. Over the years I probably have over an 70% upgrade on HNL to LAX / SFO flights...and this year is my first as a 1K and man the upgrades have been worse than when I was Plat or Gold...guess I am just booking really bad flights for the start of 2018!

Oh and between 2-3am ... the 3 open F seats just vanished... no upgrades cleared, and online checkin wanted 2K for the <5 hr flight to SFO... so there's that too

But overall, only 3 folks on the cleared upgrade list out of what, 28

Phil Level

Your profile says "GS". Take a look at some of the posts here by those who dropped from GS to 1K...

PremExecSNA

I had 1 RPU expire the end of January. It was a "fail" on my 2 Million Mile trip last week from SNA-IAH-MSY. After 4 months on waitlist, neither segment cleared, and I was #4 on both upgrade lists at time of departure.

I tried to use it unsuccessfully at least 5 times last year, including gifting it to a friend, who also failed to clear. I wrote to UA asking that it be extended. I am well aware that they don't do this on RPU's, but thought they might make an exception since it was a significant milestone. One day later, I got a one paragraph clipped response denying my request. Oh, and despite a very heartfelt and respectful email request, not a word acknowledging my 2 Million Mile accomplishment or even a thanks for my loyalty.

So much for 3 Million mile... I'll be flying other Star carriers whenever possible.

mduell

RPU'd on BOS-IAH tomorrow, been booked to 16/20 for days, yet no reason to clear my RPU. I'm sure I'll watch them sell the remaining F for $129, even to the gate, and ignore my RPU.

jjmoore

Thursday was my first day as a 1K again (down from GS)... had 2 flights yesterday, and missed both with RPU applied (GRR-ORD and ORD-DEN). This is my new reality as a 1K again. Those ToD upgrade offers are absolutely annoying, and I have been victimized by those as a GS as well... sitting on top of the UG list with 2+ seats open at the gate and they disappear prior to boarding at ORD yesterday.... I am likely to apply RPU's to every itinerary I fly, as this is my only hope of clearing upgrades these days.

If there is R or PN available, I would actually call the 1K desk and see if they can push the upgrade since you have an instrument applied. Or... would this be a waste of time?

mduell

R0 of course. 2 seats have already sold at T-23h.

fumje

That sounds like a moon shot! GS habits dying hard?

jjmoore

Was successful with it a few years ago a couple times as a 1K when my RPU's and GPU's didn't clear when R was available......

Kacee

That's the improbable part. If R were available, RPUs wouldn't be worthless.

demkr

No luck on 5:30pm EWR-SFO on 2/1. Went out #3 on list

jsloan

Absolutely you should call if this is the case, as your instrument should already have cleared and somebody else could poach the space if you don't. That said, a 1K only has access to PN when flying on a CPU-eligible route in Y/B/M (Instant Upgrade fares). Otherwise, it's only R that matters now.

Welcome back to the unwashed masses with the rest of us.

kb1992

LAX-BOS and SFO-BOS, both supported by GS RPU, but failed to clear as 1K.

In fact, I was way down the list. Something like No.10 out of 15 when F was full.

This contradicts with GS folks who claim that GS instruments should put me above all 1Ks.

Can't believe there are that many GSs on my flights ahead of me.