NH requires a minimum of a U fare to use PlusPoints to business, might find discount (N) PE cheaper. But NH N is not upgradeable, E is.

And U is cheaper than E, at least in my experience.

Waitlist expires for the NH flights at 24 hours prior to departure, they don't roll PlusPoint requests to a check-in or gate requested list.

Some newbie questions, apologies:

Is there a list of how many PP are required? I can add this to the wiki as it's not obvious. I see someone in the thread previously used 40PP for HND-SYD.

All partner segments are 40 PlusPoints. Remember each partner segment requires a separate set of 40 PlusPoints

Flying on January 4 HAN-NRT redeye. Have PP waitlisted. Flight is 36 hours out and J9-P9. If I haven’t received an upgrade already am I unlikely to from this point out?

The waitlist goes kaput at T-24, so 12 more hours to hope.

I have a flight coming up from ORD to NRT. Operated by ANA, sold as UA code share. I am booked in business on a P fare. While technically P is not upgradeable to First, I wanted to give it a shot. Have called the GS desk couple of times and the agents have been extremely courteous and knowledgeable, which isnt working to my advantage lol. Both times I asked them to convert to native NH flight numbers, they proactively checked my booking class and advised it is not upgradeable.
Any ideas on how to get past this hurdle to get the native flight numbers and try my luck with online upgrade request?

Your fare is not upgradable. You can probably eventually get an agent to swap in the ANA flight number(s) "I know it's not upgradable, but can you swap it in, anyway", but you're wasting the agents' (and your time). ANA processes the upgrades requests, not United. They are not going to budge on the on the cheapest non-refundable discount business fare to ANA First. ANA will let the First seat go out empty before doing that.

Are you aware of this ever working? It does not work for LH either.

Is P even available as a NH flight?

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...3e6a7cfb4a.jpg
Shows P .

as a UA codeshare, to change it must also show as an NH flight number -- which as NH11 is P9

Worth noting NH Z is eligible for SAUA (mileage upgrades using UA miles) and for PlusPoints.

But as mentioned, P is ineligible for PlusPoint upgrade and is also listed ineligible for SAUA
Seem consistent. And provides little hope for success.

ok, Thanks for your response.

A few weeks ago, I cleared an upgrade on ORD-NRT using PP on NH metal and since then, my UA itinerary online shows:
A modification has been made to your itinerary.
Please reach out to United Reservations, or contact your travel agency to have your ticket reissued.

I know that's normal for LH but is that also the case with NH, or should I call to have the ticket reissued? I got burned by this last year (didn't get the ticket reissued and couldn't check in at the airport) and don't want to experience that again.

You definitely don't want the ticket to get re-issued

So I have an ANA ticket class Z I want to upgrade to first class. For one of the segments, it says to add to the waitlist; for other segments, HND-JFK says an upgrade is available. I tried upgrading and got the following message: "We have experienced a technical problem. If you have not received this message before, please try your request again. If you have received this error previously, please call 1-800-UNITED-1 (1-800-864-8331) within the U.S. or Canada, or call your local Customer Contact Center."

I called United, and they don't know what is going on. I can see in my plus points activity that United is deducting and returning the 40-plus points. Does this mean that first class is full? it's showing 3 revenue seats available, and does this mean waitlisting is also full?

I updated the wiki for NH, which didn’t specifically list Z fares as being eligible in the quote (but a comment below saying people had success…) It’s now published on the UA site that Z fares are indeed upgradable, ending any ambiguity.

This will be my first attempt to use PPs outside of United; so I’m very unfamiliar with this. I haven’t pulled the trigger yet to buy the ticket yet, as I have a few questions, which I’d love help with, please and thank you!

Z fare on an NH operated, but United codeshare. Looks like I have to call to convert it to an NH flight number, which I’d do shortly after the ticket issues, is there a chance for a fare change? I saw some instances of that in the thread, but should I worry if I’m doing it relatively quickly after purchase?

This whole 8 weeks thing. I saw mixed reports. The flight isn’t until October, but currently shows O9, which leads me to believe the upgrade would clear instantly, basically, if I applied it right now. EDITED TO ADD: My error of reading UA’s codeshare buckets as NH’s led me to this erroneous conclusion. Indeed, there are not 9 seats in F for sale, since apparently the most any plane has is 8! :D

If it doesn’t clear right away, I see people talking about not getting waitlisted or something due to the inability to request within 24 hours. Does this mean that if I don’t clear at the 24 hour mark, I won’t get upgraded?

It’s ORD-NRT, I can use the Polaris lounge at ORD, right? What about the ANA F lounge at NRT? I’m connecting onward, internationally on ANA in Business.

Thanks!

There's always a chance of a problem, but that chance is smaller if the flight currently shows Z inventory under its prime (NH) code.

Yes.

You need to look at the ANA inventory, not the UA inventory -- and you won't be able to find it on United.com. The O9 you're looking at is UA's most expensive PE fare class -- equivalent of NH G -- not F awards. ANA doesn't operate a plane with more than 8 F seats, so there's no way you'd ever see O9 under the NH code.

It's just a 1:1 code swap - should be no fare change.
NH actually processes the upgrades and issues upgrade success notifications, not UA - so maybe not instantaneous.
If upgrade not forthcoming prior to 24 hours out, no upgrade.
Not sure about NRT F lounge access based on arrival F, departure J (I am just aisle traffic in ANA F)

Glad UA is now showing Z as eligible with +Ps as well. O9 cannot be true. The first cabin has 8 seats ;) You are probably looking at the UA codeshare inventory

Wow, thank you everyone for your insight.
I probably am. Searched the non-stop on United.com and yeah, I combed over the fare buckets it displayed. Mea culpa.

Despite being a 15-years consecutive 1K, 20+ here on FT; On top of never applying PPs (or previously GPUs/SWUs) on another carrier, I’ve also never flown on NH! (I’ve always opted for UA metal as I chase my 2nd million)…This is all virgin territory to me. Thanks for your patience!

Enjoy the view of the camera looking down below the landing gear, on takeoff and landing. :cool:

Very wise choice indeed on prioritizing the UA mileage accrual. :idea: :star:

A word of caution, once you have flown NH First there is no going back. Don't say I didn't warn you :D

I repeatedly get this same message! I've called MP service center, 1K desk, both multiple times. Once someone in MP service center connected me to ANA, which I knew wouldn't work :rolleyes: Finally I did get someone who sounded like she was very experienced at 1K desk. She said that "this is expected behavior." She said that back in the day when you needed to call in to apply upgrades on ANA, she would encounter this as well. She said there were basically three outcomes: 1) upgrade is confirmed, 2) upgrade is waitlisted, 3) that error message. So it's not behavior that's been designed for, but behavior which she's come to expect - and it was frustrating for her as well when she had to explain to customers that the upgrade is neither confirmed nor waitlisted. She even checked with another experienced agent who said that it simply happens. She even read through every one of the rules to double check that I had an eligible ticket, that it was within the validity period of requesting upgrades, etc. She said my only choice would be just to keep trying, even every day.

I'm curious in your case, when is the flight you're trying to upgrade? The flight I'm trying to upgrade is in October. Rules say I can already request the upgrade. One thing that I'm hoping for is when I get closer to October, e.g. 8 weeks out, that there's a lesser likelihood of getting the error messge.

I bet the problem is on ANA’s end and there’s nothing UA can do to fix it. UA system is interfacing w/ ANA’s to tell you upgrade is available when it’s not. If there are only 3 seats left and the flight isn’t fairly soon, I’d be surprised 😯 f an upgrade seat is actually available. ANA is stingy with early upgrades even with wide-open cabins a month out.

For me, the problem isn't actually that UA is telling me that upgrade is available. It's telling me that 1) it has found the reservation, but 2) upgrade is not available at the moment, then it says, 3) while upgrade is not available, we can put you on the waitlist (which is allowable on ANA). I click on "Add to waitlist," then it shows me the error message "We have experienced a technical problem." Similar as the previous poster, I can see in my account that the PlusPoints were deducted and then immediately redeposited. With ANA, PlusPoints are deducted when put onto waitlist, so something is happening, but somehow not successful...

My trip is in six weeks. However, now, when I try applying plus points to my ANA ticket, it gives me the message that "no upgrade is available and no waitlist is available."
I have had a similar experience using plus points for Copa Airlines. My strategy is to try every day up to 24 hours before my trip. With Copa, I figured out that upgrades with plus points usually become available five days before the trip, which is the same time that Copa starts upgrading its elite members.

Another interesting data point: My flight JFK-HND has 7 revenue first-class seats, and I was able to waitlist for first class. However, the HND-JFK has 3 revenue first-class seats, and I am not able to waitlist. It will be interesting to know how many people are already on the waitlist, maybe this influence the ability to waitlist. I read before that you can call ANA to ask about how many people are on the list. I am just too lazy to do it because ANA takes a long time to answer their phone.

Was wondering my chance of clearing J->F using PP. 1 week till departure and F7 A7 at the moment. Anyone has some recent data points to share?

I'll peg that near 100%. Have cleared F4A4 and F3A3 easily. F7A7 a week out ... that 'approval' Email should come very soon

That should be a slam dunk unless NH has historically/occasionally not cleared the full waitlist in the interest of preserving revenue integrity (i.e., it doesn't want pax who would otherwise pay for F to think they can reliably pay for J and upgrade).

Aaroncyan - so how did you do? Did it clear and how long before departure?

Thanks for both comments. As an update, I was cleared three days before departure for the outbound, along with 3 other passengers (I assumed).

On another note, I never received the "waitlist cleared" email notification - had to manually check my United/ANA reservation to pleasantly find out it has been cleared.

Nice! And I hope the flight was a good experience. I’m waiting on my shot at J to F upgrade on next Saturdays SFO-NRT. Fingers crossed.

yeah, haven't gotten NH notifications in a while.

Did not clear a SFO-HND from Z with F3A3, but I might have listed it too close to departure (at 30 hour mark approximately). The waitlist did not fall off until 5 hrs before departure. Return NRT-SFO cleared ~3 days before departure was F5A5.

Apparently these are manually cleared in some office in Japan. Unclear to me if it's possible to clear within 24 hrs or not.

I have not tried close in UG requests - but mine usually clear at least 72 hours before. Did F go out full?

Was able to enter F lounge on arrival with a connection in J.

only same day though. Had an overnight connection with a 12-hr layover at NRT connecting to RGN. No F lounge access at NRT

Did you get it cleared? I'm flying in about 2 weeks on waitlist now