OR, alternatively, they are simply selling the seats out from under SWU appliers for however many couple of hundreds they can get. Good luck.
Dave

I just missed my first GPU of the year (I'm batting 5/6 so far).

It was on the 6/10 (Friday) 9am AMS-EWR on a 764 (M fare). I booked about 5 weeks out, figured I had a decent chance, but watched the cabin slowly fill up. At 2am the night before, I was #2 on the list with 2 seats open, but at 7:30am those seats were gone.

I have to admit, I didn't really mind that much. I had 16L (bulkhead, good leg room, window seat in the 2-3-2). I consumed whatever packaged goop they put in front of me, slept for about 4.5 hours of the 7.5 hour flight, watched half a movie, and read for a while. Meh.

I care a lot more about the eastbound overnight TATLs.

I've been looking for this thread. :)

SFO-TPE
V fare.
5/21/16.
Booked about a month prior.

This is a 13 hour flight on a B787, with seating in Y 3-3-3. Both Y and C were full. So I am now 5/6 for GPU upgrades so far this year. (Previously this flight was a B777.)

GPU waitlist is never a sure thing. I missed* SFO-ICN last year - one of the easiest there is - with half BF cabin empty three weeks out.

* (well actually changed out of it before departure b/c was obviously going to miss)

EWR-ATH
W Fare.
6/17/2016.
Booked in January 2016
Booked full.

ATH-EWR
W Fare.
6/26/2016
Booked in January 2016
Not happening.

Good start to my holiday. I'm now 0/4 this year on GPUs, should be 0/6 after DUB fails as well in a few weeks.

Perhaps, one has to watch R space like an angel. My friend found R1 for KIX-SFO flight at T-30 with three seats "unoccupied."

FRA-SFO
1/23/16
Q fare
booked 1/16/16


LHR-LAX
2/12/16
V class
booked 2/2/16

SFO-ICN would be pretty difficult to predict especially when there have been ridiculous P fares ICN-Canada/US for right under $2k.(At this rate I may just not worry about the GPUs and get the P fare outright.) I found that HKG routes have been much easier lately, but knowing someone miss out on the HND and TPE routes is really difficult to swallow.

Makes me to seriously reconsider my position of either waitlisting the SFO-KIX and HKG-SFO/EWR or pick another date to immediately confirm it. At some point UA's customer service would pick up, and I think the TODs, and 1K members would come back.

Strategies may be very different this year.

SFO-ICN remains one of the easiest GPUs in the system. Definitely easier than HKG. (We had about 15 op-ups on SFO-ICN today).

I missed in December due to carelessness. The flight was sold only half full in BF 3 weeks out, so I viewed it as close to a sure thing, but UA was only selling down to D . . . clearly revenue management knew something about demand for the fight that I did not, and I failed to heed the warning sign.

I fly EWR - TLV usually on W fares about every 4 weeks (1k, 1.4 million miler). I've cleared once in the last year. My worst one was TLV-EWR with 16 open seats, top of the list with one hour to boarding. Didn't clear due to buy-ups. Ouch.

The other one that was frustrating was last months EWR-TLV. Top of the list, one open seat at boarding time. According to the boarding agent, the seat was given to an employee... don't know if he/she was uniformed or not.

Since American pulled out of TLV, the load factors are high, and I think it's a super-hard route to upgrade on.

Batting 0/4 so far this year with GPU/RPU's. United seems to have forgotten "LOYALTY" is a two way street. I am giving up, and have diverted about $50K this year to LH, TK and BA.

I will re-iterate a suggestion I have made in the past. Document the spread between the W fare you pay and the best economy fare available by taking screenshots when you book. If/when you don't clear, request the difference from UA. If you do not get it, issue an FTC complaint based on the various justifications made in the "GPU lottery" debate. (opinions vary on likelihood of success - but I have not seen anyone try)

I did the above a few years ago and got certs for the difference which cut off my complaint route. Not likely you will get the same results today though....

I don't take my chances anymore, I only book when R available.

Why would you complain to the FTC? They have no jurisdiction over airlines. That's exclusively DOT's arena.

Today NRT-IAD. Bought W fare a few months back. Am currently #13 on the upgrade list with BF showing full. Seems like half the plane is in Group 1! My guess is this is a pretty hard route to clear?

This is difficult to swallow, but:

1. It's Sunday, so all the business travelers headed to the US.
2. It's a ridiculously lucrative route. Governmental agencies between Japan and US can all occupy the BF and GF, similar to the ANA flight. I met so many federal agencies when traveling this route.
3. There can be a lot of full fare passengers because of that.

Maybe I shouldn't trust UA too much. Really should be just switching my dates to confirm the GPU outright. This is getting ridiculous!

Sorry for the awful news. Perhaps I have the advantage of staying in the East(EWR, ORD, SFO), any NRT route to HKG, whereas you would have to eat whatever you can get out of SFO.

I do love to try to stay with 747 UD as long as they live coz they won't live long. Yes, I do try to look at how many P/PN fares are available before ticketing the flights. Thank you for the reminder!