I just booked our first TATL/TPAC for a flight after January 31 (when the elite base would change) ... was looking for flights to LHR on a W fare in April flying through either IAD or EWR. I was surprised to find of the 9 options given me at the UA website, 7 of the TATL flights had R9 availability and 1 had R5 availability. Only one was R0. On the return flights at least half had R9 availability. Maybe that's normal for EWR-LHR or IAD-LHR (which I don't usually fly).

But we will be flying to Australia this summer, so I randomly checked some LAX-SYD flights (Australian winter of course) and found lots of R bucket availability. Are others finding increased R availability?

Of course an alternative explanation (to fewer 1ks and hence fewer GPUs) is that UA can't fill their planes with paying customers on J/P/Z fares ...

Because of schedule flexibility, we've never had a major problem using our GPUs but in the past it has often required some work. It's never been this easy ...

I think that you may have simply been lucky. When I was looking for February, there was no availability on any dates that would work for me.

Definitely beginners luck. Always tight to OZ. I could not find going in March and am waitlisted. Took a day in May to be guaranteed at least 1 way. This is normal for me.
I am 4-6 times a year on SFO/LAX-SYD and return. Less space since the switch from 747 to 777 (less seats).

I agree with OP, there is more R now than in the past couple years. Just check out the GPU "success" thread - people are scoring advance space to SYD, DEL, and TLV with some regularity. R to HKG has been widely available. There's more TATL availability as well, although ex-SFO is still tough.

FWIW, my experience weakly agrees. I used all of my GPUs on international flights last year, (I think I missed 2 or 3 upgrades, but had 8 or 9 flights). Haven't booked anything international this year yet, but my impression was that upgrades were getting easier toward the end of the year. I cleared two SYD upgrades on H fares, on of which was on a Saturday. So, yeah, pastures are a bit greener... maybe...

I found "R" a few weeks ago all the way through on a February Sat-Wed DEN-LHR itinerary...exact dates I needed.

Just booked Syd->Bos for my sisters wedding in august
Nearly every day in august has r=9 for Syd->sfo/lax
Bought W and was able to confirm the upgrade instantly for me + Ms Tentacle

I've never seen so much R space on syd->sfo/lax before

My .bomb must be different. After reading the last few posts I just looked at August. From Aug 1-15. No R from LAX on any day. R available form SFO on 4th, 11th, & 12th.

And August is dead winter.

I kept reading about how tough the UG spots to australia are so I wanted to book a nov/dec trip this early

I found most of the week (except fri/sat/sun) open R space to MEL and SYD, I booked LAX-MEL and SYD-LAX both open R space at booking...

Too early to tell. All 2014 elites are still elite for a few more days.

One of my transpacs this spring had no R availability on any route or any date close to when I wanted to travel. I'm waitlisted at the moment for Wednesday segments which I expect to clear at some point, but as of now and when I booked them in early January, no R.

My changes I had to make to a BKK itin I'd be on right now did have plenty of R on several routings (ORD-NRT, EWR-NRT, SFO-NRT), and was fine for mid-February even with Chinese New Year falling during the travel times.

Just this week, I booked a round trip to MEL and cleared GPUs at time of booking. Not only was there R space on the 787, but my connecting legs to YVR all cleared into R at time of booking. That's 5 flights (I'm connecting through SFO and LAX on the way down) with two GPUs at time of booking. I've not had that happen in 2014, or 2013 come to think of it.

I'm 4/4 on GPUs (EWR-MUC return, EWR-NRT return) and 2/2 on RPUs this year (ps flights) so far. This is definitely too early to tell but given I had atrocious numbers last year, this would certainly be nice. Even slightly more R inventory would be an incredible benefit enhancement. I'm certainly interested to see how this evolves.

I was watching towards the end of 2014 and have noticed that R availability TATL to LHR had a pretty decent R availability. Especially in comparison to DUB. Not sure - perhaps it might have something to do with the UK passenger duty people would have to pay on a premium seat?

Tried to find R EWR-PVG in June for many dates. Can't find any.

PN9 is available for many dates but that doesn't help me.

LAX-PVG Non Stop 787 in April seems very Slim in R Inventory at the Moment as well..