findark

sUA for sCO swaps are exceedingly rare, and the sUA 772 has 48 premium seats, so it would only be over by 2.

StuckinITH

Here's the thing. You cannot worry now for a flight in February. It's not good for you. A few days before your flight, check the weather. And then if the weather looks like it's going to be funky in EWR, and UA issues a weather advisory, take action. Have other routes in mind that can get you there (you can ask to be rerouted to get the flight to PEK from ORD, SDC to an earlier flight, etc.....)

FWIW, I have not seen too many complaints on UA of the downgrade happening on award tickets. BA, on the other hand, is notorious for doing that especially downgrading passengers from First Class to Business.

drewguy

If you are going to spend your time checking anything it should be to see whether you can get on the nonstop IAD-PEK.

United doesn't oversell J, so it's only if there are irrops that you might get booted by a paying customer who missed a flight. And even then it's unlikely because more typically J won't be entirely full so someone just won't get an upgrade (or at worst gets downgraded).

KimDC

Thanks everyone! I will also continue to check for seats on the non-stop out of IAD. Even though I'm a bit worried about weather, we are scheduled to leave DC early enough that if the IAD-EWR portion of my flight gets canceled or delayed due to weather, we can still hop a train to Newark. Learned that one the heard way in the past!

fumje

It is August and you are already worrying about the weather in February? Have you found a 6-month weather forecasting service?

zitsky

If you book a flight using Mileage Upgrade Award aka miles to upgrade an Economy ticket to Business class and/or Polaris, can it be revoked for any reason? I was all set to book a trip RDU-SIN in Economy but partner would prefer Business class. I haven't done this for quite a while and wanted to make sure that rules haven't changed. I don't want to book an upgrade award then have the rug pulled out from under my feet.

findark

Is it available to confirm right now? The simple answer is no, once confirmed it can't be "revoked". Standard disclaimers apply like:

• In IRROPS standard policy is to ship you out in the first available seat in any cabin
• Obviously if there was fraud, a ticketing error, etc. and audit can "revoke" it

zitsky

Yes it's available to confirm right now. Just asking in case something has changed. I understand IRROPS changes the game.

Thank you for the answer.

When I looked more closely, I saw the dreaded "Upgrade waitlist". Funny that United will sell you an upgrade but then put you on that waitlist. LOL

emcampbe

its available right now, or it’s not. Space in PZ needs to be available for an upgrade award to clear. If it’s not, they take the miles/co-pay, and put you on the list in priority sequence. If space opens, it clears people on the list in order (with disclaimers like, if there are 2 on your reservation waiting, and only one seat available, they will skip your party and upgrade the next 1 pax party).

United isn’t ‘selling’ you an upgrade if you don’t receive it. At time of request, you always have to pay the miles/co-pay upfront, so they know you can pay for it. If you don’t clear, everything is refunded (without fees).

if it does clear, you’ve got a confirmed seat in the cabin, and they can’t ‘revoke’ it. If you aren’t sitting in that cabin, they are required to pay downgrade comp. the only reason that would happen is if they can’t provide it, ie, plane gets downgraded to one with fewer seats and they are now oversold. Is it possible? Sure. Is it likely? Probably not.

Kacee

Can UA pull an upgrade? Sure. They make the rules, they interpret the rules, and they enforce the rules. Does UA in practice have a habit of pulling the football away at the last minute, like Lucy does to Charlie Brown? No.

gene2632

They do it all the time, the wait list ting. The icon is so small it is easy to miss but thankfully further along the booking process it does show up as wait list. When I hit that while planning a trip to Europe next fall I quickly gave up and booked AA for their PE seats. UA had zero PE seats on the routes I needed.