bob12403

For those who have a fair amount of familiarity with Premium Plus booking and price fluctuations:

We've never flown in PP before, but were considering the buyup for an outbound flight IAD-LIS in April, and again outbound IAD-BCN in September. Currently in 32 K/L "preferred seating" thanks to my lowly Silver Premier status. (FYI, all flights are nonstop 767-400ER.)

As luck would have it, just before I was going to pull the trigger on the LIS flight, the buyup price jumped from $375 to $847. Not a price I would consider. There are still 16 of the 24 seats available, and I believe that number has been constant since the price increase at the end of December.

On the BCN flight PP is completely empty. The buyup is $375.

Anyone here have any experience with price fluctuation in PP buyups well in advance of the flight? I very much would like to see the cost of the LIS upgrade come down before I would consider buying the upgrade. But I'm also curious whether the $375 buyup for BCN is pretty much the floor? If the flight goes another few months with no takers might the price drop further?

Final buyup question: Does what was paid for the flight have any bearing on the cost and/or opportunity for the upgrade? The IAD-LIS flight was a really cheap $529 in S class. For Spain, the IAD-BCN flight was 40K miles and booked into XN class. The return from MAD-IAD at the beginning of October was 30K miles, also in XN class. Even though that flight is almost empty, UA won't offer me any upgrades in either Polaris or PP. "This reservation is not eligible to be upgraded."

TIA for any insights you might have.

WineCountryUA

A great price and will not last. Below $50/hr. I consider $40-50/hr a no brainier decision. IME $40/hr is pretty much the floor and it is rare.

Depends on how sales are going. Usually takes for paid fares to be R fare for the cash offers to get to the lower level..
However, UA's pricing algorithms are not simplistic, and a number of factors seem to be used. The last thing UA wants is customers to have too much insight and accurately predicting UA's moves.

Little effect
Not eligible for PlusPoints or mileage upgrades, Cash upgrades are considered a separate category by UA.

bob12403

Quote:
WineCountryUA, thanks for all the valuable information. Just to followup on your answer above: If I were to upgrade to PP on the MAD-IAD flight, I would want to buy the upgrade with $$, not with miles. Yet UA is not offering me any upgrade option at all, whether miles or cash, unlike all the other flights on these itineraries, where I can upgrade with cash. Any idea why that might be?

docbert

Upgrade availability and price is always variable, based on criteria that likely nobody outside of United knows - especially for a flight that is still 9 months away. This seems to be doubly true for award flights (see my example above where it was over $5k for an upgrade to PP, and only $100 more for Polaris - which came down to $300 at checkin!).

If you want to 'upgrade' now, your best option is likely check how much it'll code to book the flight directly in Premium Plus. I'm seeing as low as 50K miles for that flight in October, which is only 20K more than what you've said you've already paid. Depending on how you value miles, that's likely less than you'll ever get for the buy-up. Otherwise there's a good chance you'll need to wait until check-in to get a good price - but obviously by then there's a real chance PP will be sold out, and/or close enough to that such that the upgrade prices aren't cheap.

bob12403

Thanks, docbert, there's some solid logic in what you said, but unfortunately the numbers are a bit off. The October MAD-IAD flight we're on, which cost me 30K for economy per person, is actually 60K for an outright purchase of PP, so it's really a 30K difference per person. Given that we're not flush with miles, if the $$ cost was reasonable it would make more sense for us to buyup with $$ rather than miles, if they actually offered me an upgrade option, which they are not. That's what I don't understand

As far as the outbound IAD-BCN: Yes, you're absolutely right, it seems it might be very surprising if there would be 2 PP upgrade seats together available at checkin for a significantly cheaper price than the $375 pp that I'm being offered now, which is why I'm leaning very heavily towards taking the plunge now for the outbound flight. (EDITED TO ADD: And today I did indeed purchase the PP upgrade for the outbound.)

paule123

At OLCI the other day, DEN-SAN segment offered for $139. I was #10 as a Plat with PP applied and 2 seats left. No chance of clearing. Took the offer. Not the greatest value on a 2 hour "snack" flight but turned out to be the right decision after enduring 3 hours of literal butt hurt in Y on the previous 3 hour CLE-DEN segment that was offered at $414.

ExplorerWannabe

UA 383, Jan 17, 2024 departure, HNL-DEN
One remaining seat in FC, asking $804. At the time I checked, the plane was only 2/3 full, no standbys indicated with numerous empty rows in the back so I passed on the offer, figuring I'd get hobo FC.
The offer remained right up to boarding so one person got an upgrade. Joke was on me, plane was nearly full and women sitting in the middle seat next to me was overflowing her seat. I still managed to get a good 4 hours of sleep.

jsloan

Basic Economy has made seat maps essentially worthless.

kulak

I bet the person at #2 was butt hurt.

B747SP

SFO-HKG flight, waitlisted for Polaris Business with R fare and PP. Flight status showed 45/60 booked three days out. It then changed to 58/60 booked overnight and I was #7 on the waitlist. Using "change flight" showed an additional $1800ish to upfare to P, but using "change seat" wanted an additional $2300ish to assign a business class seat. One day before departure, someone showed up as cleared on the flight status but it was not the original #1 on the waitlist. Upon OLCI, there was a cash upgrade offer at $1299 so I took it. My name moved to the cleared section too. In the end 4 people including me showed up on the upgraded list, but the #1 on the waitlist stayed there until flight departure. I guess all 4 on the cleared list are TOD takers. Revenue management played well and they won.

Longboater

UA offered $399 on the 787-9 flight on IAD-LAX right up until the moment of my PP clearing. My return 787-9 LAX-IAD flight, at one point it was as low as $549 but now it is $1,169 with one seat left. Well, given the day and timing, Sunday morning, I should not be surprised. Only four seats left to sell on the seat map, strongly suggesting the flight is going to be looking for volunteers to switch flights.

Repooc17

Deceptive:

United747

Is there a connection? I noticed it’ll display the lowest cost across connections - I’ve had something like ORD-SFO-YVR and it would say Upgrade for $99 or whatever, and I got excited thinking it was the ORD-SFO leg

Repooc17

Nonstop

bob12403

Just like all the hotels, probably includes a resort fee.