ljwobker

I called UA this morning to try and find flights that could be upgraded at booking for an upcoming TPAC. The agent was able to find a couple of segments with space, but when I use expert mode on UA, I can find more segments that show R1/RN1 or maybe even R4/RN4... these are segments that the agent didn't mention were available. I was under the impression that a non-zero R number almost always meant you could upgrade-at-booking... is this a reasonable assumption?

I have to book all my travel via the corporate agency, so I have to mostly do all the legwork and have something I'm very confident in before I call and get it booked ;-S

MatthewLAX

Upgrades are pulled from R, so if you found R that means your upgrade would clear immediately on that flight.

Agent may have been searching origin to destination, which sometimes masks R space on individual segments.

WineCountryUA

Existence of R on an individual segment, beleive so with 2 exceptions
- Flights booked as direct flights (ORD-HKG-SIN)
- 3 class aircraft used on PS routes

emcampbe

If you are using an instrument (or miles), anything available in R will clear instantly.

Not sure how agents see it on their screen, but if it involves a connection, assuming the flights are on a through fare (same fare class on both flights, as opposed to say, one in W and the other in V), UA.com at least will only show the lowest number available on either flight. If their screen looks the same way, then perhaps that could have been an issue. Clearing is based on the availability on an individual flight.

Example, flying DAY-ORD-PEK. DAY-ORD on an individual basis is F4, RO, while ORD-PEK is F9 R2. If you look up DAY-PEK, and its a through fare, this connection will show both segments as F4 R0. However, if you were to apply a GPU, it would clear onto the PEK flight, since it basis it on individual availability. UA.com at least, was purposely programmed this way.

eng3

I would not trust an agent to search for upgrade space for you. They are probably trained to do searches in a goal to find you a flight in common ways (ie. shortest duration, lowest price, etc). I would find it highly doubtful that they are trained to help you find an itinerary with the most upgrade availability.

I typically search every hub-destination (and return dest-hub) routing available to look for R space on the days I want. Then I check the origin-hub (and return) flights since these are usually shorter. If I'm lucky enough to find R>0 on all segments, I immediately book and immediately apply GPUs. If R goes to zero, I immediately cancel and repeat

eng3

So if you're flying ORD-HKG-SIN and R>0 on ORD-HKG but not on HKG-SIN, you cannot upgrade at all?

ermintrude

UA I believe stopped expert flyer from searching for R. As far as I know there is currently no automatic IT to search for R.

WineCountryUA

Yes, if purchased as ORD-SIN, UA895. You need to split into two flight segments. This is a "direct" flight issue.

Hipplewm

There is a CRAPTON of issues with "Direct" flights

There is on from IAD-LAS that goes thru SFO as well, but I digress

I have found it MUCH easier to find R availability by doing a multi city (segment) search, then going up to a more general search and see when it disappears, then go back to the least granular and book it.

zrs70

Unfortunately, agents see what more or less we see if searching origin to destination. I often have to ask them to look segment by segment when they tell me, "not available" - though I see R3 online.

mymilesandpoints

by 'split into two flight segments', do you mean book two different reservations?

mahasamatman

No, it can be one reservation, but the segments need to be booked individually and not as the direct flight.

ljwobker

Sigh. So in reality the most effective way is to basically crawl my way through .bomb using expert mode, and find R>0 on the segments I *really* care about, and reverse engineer my itinerary to match those flights? Nothing more efficient or programmatic than that? ;-(

Artpen100

That is pretty much it. Though I have started setting "I" searches on EF. There is no perfect correlation with R, but if I opens up and I get an alert about it, I have found that if I check UA.com there is a good chance R just opened up, too.

exerda

IME, flights will be R > 0 before they are I > 0, often by weeks or months, FWIW. So yes, seeing I > 0 is almost a guarantee there will be R space, but you may be missing many flights which have R but no I...