WineCountryUA

The is a case of economy fares that will automatically get assigned to the next higher cabin (such as domestic F) when purchased (and the fare ules are met and a particular F fare inventory is available). They are call -UP fares and can be associated with any economy fare class, such as Y-UP, V-UP or W-UP, or .... These are not Instant Upgrade YBM fares and the -UP fares come in two forms (traditional & UPDI)

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...yer-miles.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...yup-fares.html

qukslvr619

Was booked IAHDENIAD two weeks out in full Y waiting for travel office to ticket. Finally was ticketed but at 72 hours out only IAHDEN had PN available and DENIAD only had 3 F seats left. Yesterday I just happen to pull up my reservation and PN opened up PN=1 and immediately snagged it. What I was wondering though is if I hadn't been proactive I assume that I would have probably been stuck in the back. CPU runs at the windows to clear into R but if PN opens up before the windows do you have to manually watch it and your left on your own to process the upgrade? In theory what could have happened is I could have lost out to someone with higher status clearing at their window or whenever CPU runs?

cfischer

YBM clearing into PN has been an issue for me; had to call every single time to get it done.

WineCountryUA

Instant Upgrade do not clear automatically as a past of CPU processing, they need to be manually requested.

However they should be a part of the gate upgrade process.

BTW "IAHDENIAD" is very hard to read, spaces, hyphens, colons, .... between cities improve readability

Kacee

Theoretically no. You would have been ahead of all CPUs (except GS).

Y/B/M clear before instruments which clear before CPUs.

DaviddesJ

It seems pretty silly for every Y ticket to automatically upgrade into F seat, even the last available one. If Y is going to book into F, why not just make it an F fare? If it used to work otherwise then this seems like a logical change. The cheapest F fare is usually going to be less than Y, anyway. Seems like the only people unhappy with this are going to be those who have someone else paying for their tickets who will pay any amount for Y but won't pay for F even if cheaper.

qukslvr619

A couple of things. First this thread is about the fact that Y no longer books directly into F and is capacity controlled so no longer an automatic upgrade. Second the cheapest F is often more restrictive than a full Y. So that cheap F fare may look great on the surface but carries a penalty for changes or cancellations.

Another thing to consider is that F rarely is oversold so by selling it as a Y fare into an overbooked Y cabin, they typically can accommodate into the original booking cabin in the case that F becomes overbooked. The full Y upgrade scenario is an incentive for Elite or business travelers to buy the more expensive fare with fewer or no restrictions and still stay within corporate policy that requires Y travel.

DaviddesJ

In other words, a way for corporate travelers to cheat their employers, right? No one ever made a policy "You can fly in economy but not first" with the intention that that would authorize their employees to buy a ticket that claims to be an economy fare but costs as much as first class and gives them a first-class seat.

LaserSailor

We encourage our employees to go into first through this exact route ..it's most flexible/cheapest way to get up front for work and/or recharge.

If you are a drone working for a F500, you should feel privileged to carry their name on your card and your travel life will suck.

In SMB life is much better.

DaviddesJ

If they both upgrade into PN, then B is always going to be cheaper than Y. And booking in F is usually cheaper. E.g., EWR-SFO (a few weeks ahead, so all buckets available) is $1625 in Y, $1424 in refundable P, $1027-1077 in refundable B, $795-845 in refundable M. Of these options for getting a F seat, Y doesn't look like the winner. There may be very rare times when booking in Y to get an F seat is the best option, but most of the time it's an inferior option whose sole advantage is that it 'looks like' economy to the employer or reimburser.

kb1992

One of my tickets shows:

$280 in T
$500 in P
$700 in M
$900 in B
$1100 in Y
$1300 in F

It's no brainer to take P.

I'll save my RPUs on BOS/EWR/JFK-SFO/LAX.

qukslvr619

It's not a matter of buying the most expensive fare to get the upgrade as you imply but that I'm contractually obligated to book into Y to allow for the most flexibility. The fact that UA decides to offer this benefit, albeit now capacity controlled. There's really no cheating going on here. I'm not allowed to buy an F fare even if it's cheaper. I think UA realizes most corporate limitations on the booking of premium fares. Sorry if my corporate policy that requires me full flexibility is eating into your upgrade % but it's not like I'm on a TOD upgrade here either.

DaviddesJ

How is booking a Y fare more 'flexible' than booking B or M or any other refundable fare, including a fully refundable P fare that gets you a first-class seat? This doesn't make any sense to me, but I could be missing something.

pagotto

Another thing to take into account are corporate discounts. My corporate discount on Y fares on UA is substantial, so often times even if P is a few hundred dollars cheaper than Y, if it's a V-UP or something, after discounts Y is cheaper. Same goes for B.

That said, it's disappointing that they made this change without clearly communicating it anywhere...

DaviddesJ

That's interesting. Is that what they call "PassPlus", or something individually negotiated? I can see how that could happen if the discounts are big enough.