Absolutely zero chance. NH will not clear 3 seats out of 8 350 days out. No way. 1 seat? Maybe

It would be Y to J. No PY with NH upgrades. 7 seats is not great, but it is 5-6 days out. NH does usually not clear down to zero. It either clears by T-24 hr, or it won't. M does help, but that is very few seats available right now.

The question is regarding one seat clearing from J to F soon after booking when there will be F8 available.

Maybe 1 will clear. But it will also depend on whether someone with higher status beats you to it (assuming you don’t have any ANA status).

Clearing 1 is possible. I have seen it happen with F8 actually right away or shortly after WLing. NH is weird with J --> F upgrades, some seem super quick and easy and others they keep at F7 until like 2 days prior to departure and then they clear them all

I will try this, UA will make my flight available in 3-4 weeks time for sale, ANA should have it sooner, Is there any difference in booking directly ANA rather than UA?

wrt clearing UGs? No. UA ticket will earn more PQP and miles. NH will be based on distance and with current TPAC fares in Z or higher it will almost always be better via UA from that perspective

I will wait for United to sell this flight, and then make the purchase. On this trip there will be three passengers in total in J, I understand that the chances to clear to F for all are very slim.

Does it make sense to book myself on a separate PNR and apply upgrade using PP and then book a ticket for the other 2 passengers inc child and apply upgrade for them separately for 2 seats.

if you are o.k. w/ only 1 clearing then yes, that is a good strategy

Yep I am ok with my nine year old not sitting in F.

Sadly the flight from HND departs at 11pm and Narita takes too long!

Datapoint & Question:

Datapoint:

• ORD - HND NH111 3 successfully cleared from M -> I (Eco -> Biz) at D-21 with PP applied exactly 8 weeks in advance and 1 pax on the reservation being SA*G (UA1k).
• I called ANA at D-24 and paid to reserve economy seats to ensure we had 3 seats together (very full cabin). $50 in seat fees now "wasted", but ANA agent made it clear they were non refundable if upgrade cleared. No big deal, I considered that the 'insurance policy'. Agent said there were 14 people on upgrade waitlist but had no visibility into our standing. ~22 seats unreserved at that point
• Was able to immediately assign Biz seats through ANA website at D-21. Seat map has not really changed, inclined to believe the entire 14 person waitlist was not cleared, maybe not more than the 3 on my reservation.

Question:

• I noticed the upgrade cleared because my reservation now has a red box "There’s a problem with your reservation. The tickets for your flight need to be updated. If you booked this trip using a travel agency, you’ll need to contact them to fix this. Otherwise, contact us".
• https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c260be9d1c.png
  
• On ANA I see my status as "Upgraded", but not as "OK" as others have mentioned. I have another ANA leg on the return that shows up on the ANA website in this same itinerary and that leg shows "Status: Confirmed"
• https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...2db6f70120.png
  
• On the LH PP thread the unanimous comment is to ignore the red box and do not let UA or anybody touch the ticket Example from the LH thread.
• I don't see anyone making these comments on this ANA thread - is this a common occurrence and should I ignore it or contact UA? I have a UA connection before NH111 and would like the bags through checked. My plan is to check in through ANA at T-24, but not check in for the UA connection until I reach the airport counter at the origin airport and make sure bags are through checked there.

The same rules should apply here. If UA reissues the ticket, your upgrade is likely to be lost. This message means that your reservation doesn’t match UA’s view of your ticket — which is fine, because UA thinks you paid an economy fare and now you’re seated in business.

If I wanted to use my PlusPoints to upgrade my parents from business class to first class how many PlusPoints would it be? It was not obvious to me in the Wiki.

The flight is SYD-HND-JFK.

Thank you.

All partner upgrades are 40 +Ps per segment.

You cannot check in on anything other than your first flight. Bags are checked through anyway regardless, so I would just see if OLCI works. That gives you the most time to fix any issues. You might not be able to OLCI - I have had issues with that with cleared NH upgrades - was no issue to get all BPs at the UA check-in counter.

Don't call UA. If you can select a seat on NH and this is the segment showing in business on allnippon, then you are all set IME.

Looking to upgrade from Z to F on a UA booked flight which has been changed to an NH flight number, EF shows as the following for the NH and UA codeshare flights,, I read somewhere available There are already 2 people on waitlist, Does O space means a good chance of clearing, am I reading this correctly?

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...8ac35a4d22.png