I've noticed that too, but I don't know why or when it happens. Sometimes when the list is visible at 48h it already has some names showing cleared.

At T-30, just cleared #’s 1-9…

1K member booked in P+ (A fare) on IAH to SCL, departing Dec 23rd. Requested upgrade to Polaris with PP. Any idea on upgrade chances? Fairly short trip so I'm hoping to get a decent night sleep on the overnight! As of Dec 11th at 8:30pm:

• J7
• JN7
• C5
• D4
• Z2
• ZN2
• P0
• PN0
• PZ0

I suspect PE is oversold, as it's showing O1. If it is, you've got a decent shot if there are no GS members in P+. if it's not actually oversold, or if there are more than a couple of GS members, your chances aren't great with only 7 seats remaining two weeks out.

Even GS in economy would be ahead of him for a Polaris upgrade.

If PE is oversold, they have to resolve the oversale first. That's precisely why I think a PE oversale is a necessary condition to OP having a reasonable upgrade chance.

Flying EWR to DXB on 12/22 in economy on a V fare. I am lowly silver member, wanting to upgrade to Polaris. Right now there are 10 polaris seats available, but the upgrade cost is $5k+. There is also an upgrade offer to PP for $670 with 7 seats available, however two of those are middle seats. What are the odds of being upgraded to Polaris if I waitlist the upgrade (35k miles + $500).? Should I just do the PP upgrade outright - do you think it's worth it? Thanks!

How do you know there are 10 seats available?

I was just looking at the seat map in my united app and it shows 10 open seats. I'm a newbie to all this stuff - is that not the right way to look at it?

No. Seat map is not a good indicator of availability ... as not everyone booked may have chosen a seat yet.

While that's definitely true, in this case it's showing J9 availability, so the seat map is probably close to being accurate.

OP: United doesn't like your chances of being upgraded to Polaris. The inventory is J9 (JN9) C5 D0, meaning that they're only selling full-price tickets at the moment. That's an indication that they think they can sell them. 10 days out, for a Friday night flight, as a Silver in Economy? I wouldn't like your chances, I'm afraid. :(

Looks like it's currently 49 out of 50 booked.
Quite a few on upgrade list currently (~57!).

Are we looking at the same flight? OP asked about 12/22. I see J9; hard for me to believe they'd be willing to oversell J by so much.

Yeah, I'm not 100% sure now. Thought I first saw 39/50 but then it jumped to 49/50 a few minutes later.
My 'source' is unreliable, by the looks of it. :)

i saw 49/50 too on what I assume is the same source. United’s internal system show it as 39/50 booked though with one held.

Flying SFO - TPE this Friday (12/15). I see:

PN4 PZ3

I'm considering throwing some miles/dollars at an upgrade. If I do so, I'm not sure about my odds. I see 15 seats open on the map right now, and moreover am curious how I interpret the upgrade waitlist and if that reflects people paying/waitlisting for upgrades via miles/points/dollars?

The upgrade should clear right away. It'll tell you if it'll clear before you actually pay the miles and cash, go and try.

Says waitlist. Maybe many others are trying to pay for upgrade?

i also see a bunch of people on the waitlist and it's at PN3 PZ3 rn. Theoretically new requests will clear immediately and UA will start sweeping the list soon. If you are already waitlisted, remove it and reapply right away

Ok that was really helpful. My apologies for not being super straightforward. I actually applied money/miles last week or maybe even the week before. I kinda forget. It's been one crazy month of work I've lost track of time. I wanted to treat my partner. But it was waitlisted. As I looked over the past few days, I saw so many open seats that it made me wonder if it would sometime clear. Then after doing a crash course on expert mode, I was confused when I saw PN/PZ > 0 and us not being cleared yet.

I called to cancel the upgrade and because I had some leftover PP from previous failed upgrades from Thanksgiving travel, I applied PP to my partner's upgrade (cleared immediately), and threw money/points at myself. Better to have used the PP than to let it go to waste, so that was a good idea.

So maybe the lesson is not to apply upgrades too early? Or only do it when upgrade space is available?

glad you were able to clear and jumping over all those people :)!

You should always apply the upgrades as soon as possible but at the same time monitor PN/PZ availability. Think of it as if there are two systems - revenue management and upgrade automation systems. RM decides when to release what inventory while upgrade automation processes upgrades in batches. There's usually a time delay in between as they each have their own schedule and are not synchronized. If you were to wait a few hours after upgrade automation has been run, you would not have been able to skip the waitlist and PN/PZ would have gone to 0.

basically you were lucky to catch the PN/PZs that were recently released by RM and that have not been consumed by upgrade automation

Got it. All these years of flying and I probably didn't know what I was doing. Yet when it comes to restaurant reservations, I've run auto reload on Resy to find me openings on the day of--sometimes I'd tell my friends "don't worry, I don't have a reservation yet, but I know next Thursday night I can snag us a spot within 30 minutes of our target." Had I known this is how it works, I probably could've made many of those PP upgrades work. A lot went to waste with the pandemic.

I didn't realize that's how the system works, but it totally makes sense reading your explanation and seeing a few other posts talk about the sweep system. So basically keep an eye out. I was super nervous asking the agent over the phone to cancel the upgrade since I didn't know what would happen at all.

And just for my understanding, prior to jumping the queue, I was number 20 or so. Does that mean there are 19 other people who did PP/Miles/Money upgrades and are waitlisted as well? What convinced me to try was that with 15 openings, and number 20, I'd never get there, so might as well cancel, and if there are no good miles/PP/money offers, I'd still be in the same place in the end anyway.

Yes, that's precisely what it means. If you hadn't paid attention, you never would have cleared. Well done. :)

it's now at J3 and of course PN0 PZ0 :)

Well done! 😄 You have just sharpened y😄ur restaurant reservation skills from FT.

So I am curious to get your opinion on my chances of an upgrade. Flying Sunday, January 14, UA 953 ORD-MUC. Currently booked in R, a 1K friend applied PP to waitlist for two seats to Polaris. Currently Polaris is booked 17/44 and we are spots 3 & 4 (of 9) on the Polaris waitlist. PremiumPlus is currently booked 16/21, and it looks like United is willing to oversell by 1.

We have no status on UA anymore 🙃.

Open relevant fare buckets are:

• J9
• JN9
• C9
• D9
• Z9
• ZN9
• P9
• PN0
• PZ0
• IN0
• I0
• O6
• ON6
• A3
• R0
• RN0

Our return BER-EWR flight on a Saturday cleared from R to Polaris back in mid-November, which seems very early! That flight no longer shows PN or PZ availability.

What’s your status?

Judging by the part where they say no status anymore, I'd assume no status.

no status, just the credit card

J9 on expert mode but App says Polaris is full
 

I am just able to see the WLs of my Sunday flight on United App. It says “Polaris cabin is full.” When I search my flight, the expert mode says “J9 C9 D7 Z5 P4 O1.” Premium Plus cabin has one seat open on seat map. Polaris cabin has 11 seats not selected. Do you trust United App more than “expert mode?” What is really going on on my flight? Any guess?

Normally, I trust the App more than united.com. For my flight, these two agree with each other. So, I guess that the WLs now mirror each other between the website and App.

Upgrade chance ORD-BCN and BRU-EWR in May 24
 

Hi! What are the odds of clearing upgrades (PZ>0) in May 2024,
1) ORD-BCN a Saturday
2) BRU-EWR a Saturday

It would be for me and my partner therefore 2 upgrades on each flight.

Context: I have no status with United, only Presidential with Copa Airlines (Star Alliance Gold). Copa hands instant upgrade certificates that work on United as long as there is PZ availability.

Polaris is blocked due to oversold in the back

It is very unlikely, based upon the fare class availability shown below (IAH-GIG on Dec. 24).

• J9
• JN9
• C9
• D6
• Z4
• ZN4
• P3
• PN0
• PZ0
• IN0
• I0
• O1
• ON1
• A0
• R0
• RN0
• Y9
• YN9
• B9
• M9
• E9
• U9
• H9
• HN9
• Q9
• V9
• W9
• S9
• T9
• L6
• K4
• G0
• N9
• XN9
• X5

Trust Expert Mode. The flight status page has been showing weird things off and on for a while now. They’re obviously not selling 9+ additional seats into a full cabin.

this has been happening to a few flights for me and my friends now - previously seeing 56/60 but J8 and currently seeing Full but also at J1. It's showing more seats booked than the actual number. I would think it's showing how many times the cabin has been full without decreasing the booked number after pax has changed/canceled their flight

When I started monitoring the Polaris WL early this week, there were 12 seats available on united.com. The WL was not changed at all in the past three days. A few seats were assigned, however. It was P9 and now P3. But I cannot imagine a swing of bookings for 12 seats. It is a mystery until UA clears the WL in the next 24 hours. Keep my fingers crossed.

Add: After a good night of sleep for me, the App now shows 19 booked😀😀

Add2: Upgrades were cleared. PZ2 appeared at T-40 h and I grabbed them in order to get the last two window seats on B763. It would be cleared anyway if I waited.

Are RN and PZ availability related?
 

Am flying back from Europe next week connecting in MUC and have a waitlisted upgrade to Premium Plus, but I see low chances (down to R0 now), so I looked at changing my connection to FRA, which is at R9/RN0. I would have thought my chances are better there, but it's also PN1/PZ1. Is there any connection between when Polaris upgrades open and Premium Plus opens? Does the fact that PZ>0 but RN=0 mean they don't plan to open RN? I'd prefer a MUC connection over FRA all else being equal so am wondering whether to make the change.

No.

No.

RN is a fickle beast, because UA is often willing to oversell the PE cabin -- sometimes even with an R fare -- if there are seats available in J for upgraders to take. In general, the best information you have is the number of R seats. The only real data you can glean from the J cabin is that if you see something like J3 O3, PE is probably oversold and you're probably hoping they get some cancellations, or, at least, that there are more upgraders from PE to J than there are oversold seats in PE.

With PZ1, personally, I'd switch to that flight and upgrade to Polaris instead of PE, but that's just me. :)

R9 is good news if you’re waiting for RN. Especially if the flight is happening soon. I would say chances are good if PZ is open since that means there must not even be a Polaris waitlist (assuming PZ has been there for over a day).

Ha - me too, but alas, not enough PP left this year.

Interesting. Guess I was thinking about this backwards ("if even PZ is open then they really must not want to open RN").