jessmack

I am crossing my fingers for a MileagePlus Award upgrade on 12/26 from IAH to SCL. The seating chart is showing 3 available seats in Polaris, while the United Flight Status Tool is showing 5 unbooked seats in Polaris. Obviously, my odds of getting the upgrade are better if 5 seats are unbooked versus 3 seats. So what's more accurate? The seating chart? Or the flight status tool?

jhayes_1780

No its not a good indicator. It may not be showing people who are book, but have not selected seats.

IME, its only a good tool to find out if it is fully booked.

jessmack

Do you find both seating chart and the flight status tool to both be inaccurate? Or is one better than the other?

BlueZebra

You could easily be looking at the difference between unbooked, and unassigned. I would say there is 3 seats left...the other two are booked but not assigned.

Seating charts available to the public are notoriously unreliable. Another source would be the fares still available. Do you see A3 (or A5), Z3 (or 5) P3 (or 5) so on for the various fares you need to know about.

Kacee

Flight Status. Whether it's 3 or 5, I'd say your odds are basically zero.

jessmack

This is what I am seeing:

J4 JN4 C4 D0 Z0 ZN0 P0 PN0 PZ0 IN0 I0 Y9 YN9 B9 M9 E9 U9 H9 HN1 Q9 V9 W9 S5 T0 L0 K0 G0 N9 X0 XN0

seenitall

The seating chart for a flight more than a month away is not going to be especially accurate. And the flight status tool is only telling you how many seats UA is prepared to sell right now at a particular price. It is accurate for that, but less accurate in being indicative at pax loads.

emcampbe

Kacee

No, the flight status tool shows the actual load in the cabin. You're confusing fare inventory, which shows inventory for sale in each fare class (not "a particular price").

My there are an awful lot of wrong answers in this thread.

HNLbasedFlyer

I'd put it differently. The seating chart is very accurate. If you bought a ticket, and you see unassigned seats, you can grab that seat.

However, the seating chart only reflects who has actually chosen a seat versus those who have a ticket in the cabin and haven't chosen a seat and doesn't reality for knowing upgrade odds.

jessmack

Interestingly, the inventory is showing 4 Polaris tickets for sale, but the seating chart is only showing 3 available seats, and the flight status tool is showing 5 seats unbooked. So, different numbers everywhere!

Kacee

It's booked 25 +1 blocked. Thus J4.

Don't pay any attention to the seating chart.

jessmack

Thank you for deciphering and helping me out!!

Kacee

No problem. The 3/4/5 variance makes for an interesting example of what the different numbers represent.

WineCountryUA

Seatmap -- shows assigned seats and blocked seats. However, there may be those without seat assignments. BE or tour groups are just some of the reasons for not having seat assignments. Pre-selected seats are less common from some Asian destinations. Generally considered the poorest indicator of the flight load situation.

E+ seatmaps can be deceptive since Silver elites do not have access until check-in and some upgrades will come from E+.

Fare class inventory -- the highest fare class for the cabin of interest will show the number of seats UA is willing to sell in that cabin. It caps at 9. UA will oversell economy if space exists in the premium cabin. UA generally does not oversell the premium cabin (but there have been reports UA may be testing the waters with 1? seat oversells in some markets).

Best to look at just the single segment's fare class inventory, as multi-segment listing may be the worst case of any segment.

Flight status -- will tell you the number of premium cabin seats sold and can show seats blocked due to overselling economy.

IMO Flight status is the best indicator for the premium cabin but with UA sometimes blocking seats on certain aircraft for crew rest or mobility/medical needs that do get release closer to departure, much of this is a black art.