Understanding United Flight Status Tool
 

I and my partner, who is a premier 1k, booked an international flight for late November and applied GPU's to our itinerary. We are currently waitlisted (R bucket currently not available). When I use the flight status tool to check the upgrade standby list I see that 53 seats out of 60 available business seats have been booked:

United PolarisSM business: 60 Booked: 53 Checked In: 0

However, when I check the seat map, I see that 9 seats are available. If we are to go by the number of "Booked" seats for this flight, shouldn't there be only 7 seats available on the seat map (as opposed to 9 seats)? I'm trying to understand the difference between "Booked" seats vs actual number of available seats. Thanks.

Some passengers don't choose their seats at booking. Maybe they purchased their tickets through a travel agent or they don't have an United account. Or they don't know that on United you can choose your seat for free (BA makes you pay if you don't have high status even in Business Class). Some destinations, even more passengers don't choose their seats than your destination.

But the flight status number is the real number sold at this time. Sometimes that number will go down if passengers decide not to fly because they have a meeting they need to go somewhere else or a sickness in the family.

Thank you for the prompt response @StuckinITH; that makes sense.

Right, could be bulk tickets booked through TA