Lowly silver here, recent experience:
Booked 2/27/24
Flight 1: 3/5/24 SEA-LAX 7M8 K fare, upgraded 24 hours before flight, empty aisle seat next to me
Flight 2: 3/5/24 LAX-SEA 739 K fare, upgraded 24 hours before flight, eventual empty aisle seat next to me (person changed seats)

Doing better as a Gold than I did as a 1K last couple of years. CPU'ed SFO-PHX 7:05 pm departure last night at T-30. Also cleared an early morning departure (PHX-SFO 5:10 a.m. at T-48) but wound up taking a different flight. So either 1/2 or 2/3 this year depending on how you count.

Two SFO CPUs as a Gold? Good work. Time to go buy a lottery ticket.

I'm sure not missing 1K.

Here's the waitlist on UA 2293 for 4/8 at T-40. CPUs through Gold already cleared (including mine), meaning these are all Silvers on the list:

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...8d7a0cba6e.jpg

Haven't seen this since early pandemic.

those are prob NRSAs

Only 1 on the standby list

Definitely time to buy a lottery ticket. I have seen upgrade lists of over 50 ex SFO. Has UA lost many elites recently?

let me rephrase - those are NRSAs ;)

(or at least they were listed, but either way they're definitely not Silver)

NRSA don't show up on standby list until they check in.

I believe it's also possible to list only for J and not Y, but maybe someone can correct me if I'm mistaken on that part.

A few flight updates as a Silver. I seem to get decent luck flying EWR-YUL as a silver, as it's the second time I've been upgraded on that leg!

3/29 EWR-YUL upgraded on award ticket (with United Club Card was 8th on upgrade list)
4/4 EWR-FLL not upgraded (was 28th on upgrade list)
4/7 FLL-EWR not upgraded (was 26th on upgrade list)

April 5, UA4187 IAD-PVD on a CRJ550 CPU cleared for me as a PremPlat. Only the top 2 of 7 on the list cleared. Being only a Plat I was a bit surprised but of course it's PVD.

4/13 EWR-TPA. 1K upgrade cleared at T96

How many seats need to be available for 1K to cleat at T-96? tried searching but so far only saw a data point that 6 seats were open.

There is no set number. UA doesn't necessarily clear anybody at T-96.