Apr 25, 2021, 2:48 pm
Last edit by: Lux Flyer
Yes it's a limited time promo in many CPU markets to help people use PlusPoints before they expire at the end of July. For flights through July 31st it should be offering StW when requested at least 2 weeks in advance (as opposed to typical 30 days for international).
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...questions.html
Edit: here's the promo details they will email to you if you ask
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...questions.html
Edit: here's the promo details they will email to you if you ask
Skip Waitlist
From time to time, our 1K members are able to use additional PlusPoints to receive a confirmed upgrade when traveling on select international long-haul flights.
When Skip Waitlist is available, you’re able to either request an upgrade on our standard waitlist using fewer PlusPoints, or use additional PlusPoints to skip the waitlist and confirm your upgrade right then and there, even if upgrade inventory is closed.
Skip Waitlist availability on international long-haul flights will vary; to be eligible, you must be traveling on an eligible fare*, and request your upgrade at least 30 days from departure
*Eligible fare classes include O, A, and R (for United Premium Plus to United Polaris business); Fare classes Y, B, M, E, U, H, Q, V, W (for Economy to United Polaris business); Fare classes Y, B, M, E, U, H, Q, V, W, S, T, L, K, (for Economy to United Premium Plus).
From time to time, our 1K members are able to use additional PlusPoints to receive a confirmed upgrade when traveling on select international long-haul flights.
When Skip Waitlist is available, you’re able to either request an upgrade on our standard waitlist using fewer PlusPoints, or use additional PlusPoints to skip the waitlist and confirm your upgrade right then and there, even if upgrade inventory is closed.
Skip Waitlist availability on international long-haul flights will vary; to be eligible, you must be traveling on an eligible fare*, and request your upgrade at least 30 days from departure
*Eligible fare classes include O, A, and R (for United Premium Plus to United Polaris business); Fare classes Y, B, M, E, U, H, Q, V, W (for Economy to United Polaris business); Fare classes Y, B, M, E, U, H, Q, V, W, S, T, L, K, (for Economy to United Premium Plus).
- The earning Premier member may use PlusPoints for upgrade requests for themselves or to sponsor others with the exception of “Skip Waitlist” upgrade requests, for which the earning Premier member must be traveling. Although the earning Premier member may use PlusPoints to request upgrades for others, PlusPoints are not transferable to other members.
- PlusPoints used for Skip Waitlist upgrades are not refundable or transferable to other flights in the event of itinerary changes. A PlusPoints upgrade on a changed itinerary will require additional PlusPoints.
- Skip Waitlist upgrades won’t be available for corporate and agency account travelers who are using upgrades from a Corporate Upgrade Bank account.
When is STW available?
First UA needs to decide the route is eligible and then ZN seems to be the key inventory requirement.
PN or PZ is not required (if they were the regular amount would be sufficient)
Appears to be no special/separate GS STW inventory
STW has generally been limited to deep South America except for a short period in late summer 2021 when some TATL STW was offered, never to be seen again.
New Promo 20 June 2023 till 31 July 2023 (to use expiring PlusPoints?)
So thanks to this promo and playing around with various flights the past day. I think there's enough data for how StW works, with the major deciding factor if it's offered being if UA has "enabled" StW for the market in question.
For StW it needs these 6 things:
Inventory (ZN for business/first; /ON for PremEcon), advance purchase met (30 days international, 14 days CPU market [promo]), eligible fare (W+ to Polaris, non-BE for PP/first), eligible market, and redeeming account is 1k/GS, redeeming account travelling on the PNR.
The StW segment(s) will confirm into PZ/RN, if there are other non-StW eligible segments in the line-of-flight they are considered "paid for" by the StW pricing and will waitlist as part of the request/process as any other waitlisted upgrade.
To summarize the different scenarios:
To find StW
-Redeeming account must be GS/1K and must be travelling on the PNR
-PlusPoints being used to StW must not expire prior to the flight (oldest, eligible PlusPoints taken first)
-Cannot have pending upgrade WL request
To Polaris
-Voluntary: forfeits the upgrade and PlusPoints
-Involuntary: PlusPoints can be redeposited if not able to be accommodated in upgraded cabin
For StW it needs these 6 things:
Inventory (ZN for business/first; /ON for PremEcon), advance purchase met (30 days international, 14 days CPU market [promo]), eligible fare (W+ to Polaris, non-BE for PP/first), eligible market, and redeeming account is 1k/GS, redeeming account travelling on the PNR.
The StW segment(s) will confirm into PZ/RN, if there are other non-StW eligible segments in the line-of-flight they are considered "paid for" by the StW pricing and will waitlist as part of the request/process as any other waitlisted upgrade.
To summarize the different scenarios:
To find StW
-Redeeming account must be GS/1K and must be travelling on the PNR
-PlusPoints being used to StW must not expire prior to the flight (oldest, eligible PlusPoints taken first)
-Cannot have pending upgrade WL request
To Polaris
- ZN inventory
- 30+ days in advance
- Fare class: non-award, published W or higher
- Eligible market (only appears to be GRU, GIG, EZE, SCL, and LIM as of June 2023)
- Cost per person; 140 PlusPoints from economy/110 PlusPoints from premium economy
- Confirms into PZ
- ON inventory (yes, it appears when StW is offered to PremiumPlus, it is effectively allowing last seat inventory)
- 30+ days in advance
- Fare class: any non-BE published revenue fare
- Eligible market (only appears to be GRU, GIG, EZE, SCL, and LIM as of June 2023)
- Cost per person; 70 PlusPoints
- Confirms into RN
- ZN inventory
- 14+ days in advance/flight prior to or on July 31st (effectively July 17th is last day to book)
- Fare class: any non-BE published revenue fare
- Eligible market (basically CPU markets, see promo announcement)
- Cost per person; 70 PlusPoints
- Confirms into PZ
-Voluntary: forfeits the upgrade and PlusPoints
-Involuntary: PlusPoints can be redeposited if not able to be accommodated in upgraded cabin
Skip the waitlist (STW) questions. (New Promo thru 31 July 2023?)
Dec 5, 2019, 2:28 pm
#106
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Again, it could still be an improvement over the status quo - we're getting access to upgrade space that wasn't previously there - but I would still consider it effectively a fee.
Dec 5, 2019, 2:48 pm
#107
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I see no reason to expect that will be the case. The TPG article even states that you can apply StW to a booking that's already in your account, so you could book the W/S combination (or whatever) and then apply StW immediately thereafter, but I really don't think it will come to that. The W fare requirement is no different than the W fare requirement on GPUs, prior to the new 80-point +P option, and that didn't require a roundtrip purchase in W or anything, unless you were upgrading in both directions.
I suppose you can call a W-fare requirement a "copay" of sorts, but, if so, it's no different than the same "copay" that a GPU required.
I suppose you can call a W-fare requirement a "copay" of sorts, but, if so, it's no different than the same "copay" that a GPU required.
Dec 5, 2019, 2:54 pm
#108
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If it turns out we are precluded from mixing and matching, and StW isn't available on both directions, then as far as I am concerned there is effectively a fee here -- or a new mutation of the egregious W fare "gamble" that currently exists for waitlisted GPUs, however you want to look at it.
UA could certainly mitigate the harshness of the W fare requirement by relaxing combinability restrictions on its international fares. Instead, many of its fares (I'm thinking particularly of the TYO fares) seem to deliberately exploit the W fare requirement by forcing a ridiculously high fare if you wish to upgrade with a GPU (or it's PP equivalent).
Dec 5, 2019, 3:31 pm
#109
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UA could certainly mitigate the harshness of the W fare requirement by relaxing combinability restrictions on its international fares. Instead, many of its fares (I'm thinking particularly of the TYO fares) seem to deliberately exploit the W fare requirement by forcing a ridiculously high fare if you wish to upgrade with a GPU (or it's PP equivalent).
Dec 5, 2019, 3:41 pm
#110
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What's really frustrating is they will often offer either an S or an H SFO-NRT, nothing in between. Or if you want to purchase business one way and upgrade the other, you can't, because the P or Z won't combine with any economy fare. And if you want to construct an OJ, you're often limited to a Y/B on the TYO segment.
Dec 5, 2019, 3:53 pm
#111
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Dec 5, 2019, 4:07 pm
#112
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Dec 5, 2019, 4:22 pm
#113
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LAX-NRT: 21 JAN PZ 4, 22 JAN PZ 5 , 28 JAN PZ 8,
7 JAN, 14 JAN, & 28 JAN SFO-NRT from PZ 3-PZ 6.
Return NRT-LAX, available on Thurs in JAN .
Later tonight I will check, TPE & HKG
Dec 5, 2019, 5:25 pm
#114
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Kind of a bummer, had this been in effect I would have dumped my expiring points into my trip to EZE later this month. I would have just bought E instead of Polaris and dumped my points
. From what i see it would have been 140 points but if you loosing them why not use them. Well good to know going forward but no international coming back up until second quarter 2020.
. From what i see it would have been 140 points but if you loosing them why not use them. Well good to know going forward but no international coming back up until second quarter 2020.
Dec 5, 2019, 6:21 pm
#115
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I would have dumped my 180 on my trip to EZE tonight. Instead, I will likely die at #1 on the waiting list, since I may not be traveling internationally again until after 4/30. Of course, since I will be extending 80 points to 4/30, I may have to book an international flight!
Dec 5, 2019, 7:21 pm
#116
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After running a bunch of searches for US-SA routes, where UA is now offering the StW option, here are my conclusions and an inventory hypothesis:
Now for inventory. I looked at around 50 flights. If ZN>0, StW was offered. If ZN=0, it was not. So the hypothesis is that ZN>0 is the necessary condition for StW availability. So availability is enhanced for GS as well as 1K, since ZN availability is much better than PN (which is in turn much better than PZ).
1. StW is definitely only being offered on flights beginning February 1, 2020. So no dice for those with expiring PP.
2. Currently, the StW option is only being offered on Polaris flights - i.e., not offered on IAH-BOG or IAH-PTY.
3. The website's upgrade search function is extremely, painfully slow.
Now for inventory. I looked at around 50 flights. If ZN>0, StW was offered. If ZN=0, it was not. So the hypothesis is that ZN>0 is the necessary condition for StW availability. So availability is enhanced for GS as well as 1K, since ZN availability is much better than PN (which is in turn much better than PZ).
Dec 5, 2019, 7:23 pm
#117
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I thought this was blocked for GS but I expanded my search and found the skip option to south america. I am guessing this is going to be route specific - meaning not all routes will have this option.
The harder upgrade routes likely still will not get this option --- thats my guess at least. SIN-SFO, for example...... just checked a flight that's ZN9 and it's still not an option.
Disappointing if it won't apply to all routes. I'd pay 4x for SFO-SIN to skip.
The harder upgrade routes likely still will not get this option --- thats my guess at least. SIN-SFO, for example...... just checked a flight that's ZN9 and it's still not an option.
Disappointing if it won't apply to all routes. I'd pay 4x for SFO-SIN to skip.
Dec 5, 2019, 7:28 pm
#118
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I thought this was blocked for GS but I expanded my search and found the skip option to south america. I am guessing this is going to be route specific - meaning not all routes will have this option.
The harder upgrade routes likely still will not get this option --- thats my guess at least. SIN-SFO, for example......
Disappointing if it won't apply to all routes. I'd pay 4x for SFO-SIN to skip.
The harder upgrade routes likely still will not get this option --- thats my guess at least. SIN-SFO, for example......
Disappointing if it won't apply to all routes. I'd pay 4x for SFO-SIN to skip.
-RM
Dec 5, 2019, 8:41 pm
#119
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After running a bunch of searches for US-SA routes, where UA is now offering the StW option, here are my conclusions and an inventory hypothesis:
Now for inventory. I looked at around 50 flights. If ZN>0, StW was offered. If ZN=0, it was not. So the hypothesis is that ZN>0 is the necessary condition for StW availability. So availability is enhanced for GS as well as 1K, since ZN availability is much better than PN (which is in turn much better than PZ).
1. StW is definitely only being offered on flights beginning February 1, 2020. So no dice for those with expiring PP.
2. Currently, the StW option is only being offered on Polaris flights - i.e., not offered on IAH-BOG or IAH-PTY.
3. The website's upgrade search function is extremely, painfully slow.
Now for inventory. I looked at around 50 flights. If ZN>0, StW was offered. If ZN=0, it was not. So the hypothesis is that ZN>0 is the necessary condition for StW availability. So availability is enhanced for GS as well as 1K, since ZN availability is much better than PN (which is in turn much better than PZ).
Dec 5, 2019, 9:58 pm
#120
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As previously noted, StW is not yet available on any TPAC or TATLs. Your conclusions are unsupported.