Dervish

I'm planning a bucket-list trip to SE Asia for next February. My wife and are both over 60 and neither of us relishes the idea of doing the trip in steerage. The plan is to buy an economy fare (S class) and upgrade to Business First with miles.

The problem is, I have to buy the non-refundable economy ticket before I can request the upgrade. Once I've bought it, there's no guarantee I'll get the upgrade.

I'm ready to buy the ticket now, but they won't be able to tell me if the upgrade is available till maybe November. If it turns out that it's not, they'll refund the miles and the co-pay but I'll still own the economy ticket and I'll be stuck in an economy seat for 15 hours, which would be torture for me. I can't sleep unless I'm horizontal.

The United reservations agent told me that, as of now no seats have been sold on that flight. She also said that consideration would be given to how far in advance I requested the upgrade, but she stopped short of saying I'd get any priority.

So how much of a gamble am I taking?

Thanks!

entropy

IF you want a business ticket buy a business ticket, otherwise its a tossup.

mikelcf

Which flight specifically (what city to what city) are you looking at?

Kacee

An unacceptable gamble in my view.

The agent did not give you accurate or complete information.

You want to find a routing that has "R" (upgrade) space available at booking.

Suggest you look at this thread: how-find-upgrade-inventory-how-see-fare-bucket-availability.

There are many ways to get to SE Asia on United, and some routings are much easier to upgrade than others. If you tell us where your flying from/to, people will be able to provide more concrete advice.

Not a good answer. R is frequently available to Asia. By searching in expert mode, OP can likely find a routing with R available at booking.

entropy

Unless there's R available, then its a tossup, and not worth the risk. If I were the OP, I would look for I space on a partner...

Kacee

An award is a good idea - if, that is, OP has 320,000 miles available for two *A partner awards to SE Asia.

UrbaneGent

Also if your bucket list takes you to some SE Asia cities, you could get a one way ticket from the States to wherever there's upgrade seats available on the long-haul and then buy a separate one-way ticket BACK to the States in business. Cities like Colombo, Manila, Saigon, even Male. You can fly from Manila to LAX for $1500 in business (as long as you don't care on the airline).

bmwe92fan

With your travel date so far out honestly I would suggest you wait and watch the fares - and hope for a business class sale like the one to europe a few weeks back... If you don't have any status - and plan to use only money to upgrade - I don't think in the end you will be saving that much in advance - however, within 24 hours of departure you may well get a very good offer to upgrade.

Without knowing more about your status level with UA and miles available it's hard to give you solid advice on strategy...

IAH-OIL-TRASH

When (if) seats become available and there is a waitlist for upgrades, priority is (generally) given by Premier status level, than class of fare paid, then when you bought the ticket. Time of purchase alone is not the determining factor, and is actually one that is less commonly used as the first two commom factors will trump. If you book far ahead, there is likely to be less people on the waitlist, but there is still no guarantee of upgrade seats being made available or others jumping ahead of you if seats become available.

Without any info on your status and what your origination/destination is, its hard to help. Upgrades to/from Asia via Honolulu are easier at the cost of a lot more hours.

PV_Premier

an S fare is a big gamble, particularly if you don't have any status backing your upgrade request.

the best strategy for an upgrade is, as others have said, to find a flight with an upgrade that can be confirmed instantly at booking into "R" class.

also note that IIRC, miles alone will not get you into business class. you will also have to pony up a substantial amount of cash ($600 i think?) each direction along with the miles.

all this said, in my opinion, mileage upgrades from discount economy fares are a very bad value. i'd just buy tickets in J, or use the miles for an award flight in J or Y.

ymmv.

entropy

When you're talking about the A) coach fare, B) surcharges to upgrade (500-600$ OW), PLUS miles (30k each way), PLUS the change fees/restrictions with the underlying ticket, PLUS the question of clearing (if there is no R space)... I agree with you 110%.

Generally, you're looking at a RT price of admission of ~3k + 60k miles. if you compare that to 140-160k for a straight award, the case against the base ticket is quite compelling.

manneca

I've got a couple of flights IAH-NRT. I check various dates and have found that Wednesday departures often have lots of R space available. If you can leave on a Wednesday, you can at least get an upgrade out.

You might also want to think about economy plus. I don't know if you get upgraded if you get your money back. At least there's a bit more leg room.

I also prefer the old CO airplanes (leaving mostly from EWR and IAH) over the old UA planes. I think there is a bit more room.

If you can get mileage upgrades, IMHO, there are cheaper than buying a business class seat outright. At least that's what I've seen. It will cost $1200 each if you get upgraded both ways.

chavala

Its VERY easy to get R space to Asia in Feb. I'm not sure why the agent mentioned something would happen in November...?
That doesn't make any sense. It could come available (or not) at any time.
As others have said, play with your routing and your dates and for sure you will find something.

channa

Agents routinely provide bad information.

That said, also play with the route. I've taken suboptimal routes to confirm an upgrade in advance.

I recently booked SFO-IAD-LHR-DUB because I could clear the upgrade vs. SFO-IAD-DUB or SFO-EWR-DUB.

raehl311

Remember that in addition to the base fare, you're also going to have to pay the co-pay and miles each way.

*AND* you have to fly on United.

For the sake of argument, let's say you're going to Hong Kong.

$2,400 for two S-fares
$2,400 in copays
120,000 miles
15 or more hours on a United plane.

Total: $4,800, 120,000 miles, have to wait and see if your upgrades clear, and stuck on United even if they do.

OR, you can buy one business class ticket with cash and one award business class ticket on another star alliance airline.


Right this second that will cost you about $5,800 out of Chicago, less out of LA, but there is bound to be a fare sale between now and February that will let you get confirmed business class seats at basically the same price as two mileage upgrades.



An additional upside to actual business class seats is they don't go away if there are irregular operations/cancellations/weather/etc.