I was helping someone book a trip to Germany. He wanted to upgrade, so the options were W or R. By actually reading the fare rules (day restrictions mostly), we were able to find days where R was about $100 round-trip more than W.

Higher upgrade chances (he cleared both ways, but he's also GS), and worst case scenario, not stuck in Y.

I find the same on AC, where it's fairly common that lowest premium economy fare is cheaper than lowest upgradeable fare. Seems to be a trend.

One of the great things about PlusPoints is that you can now upgrade any fare class.

That said, last year I upgraded through BRU, and I bought R both ways because it was cheaper than W.

I just paid $300 over normal economy, not BE, pricing for P+ on a trip from PDX-EWR-LHR-SFO-PDX. It's the shoulder season but even so, I decided that it was worth my money for the added comfort. If UA can keep it in that range they'll keep me as a customer. AA was almost the same price BTW....

TPAC's must be the issue then. I have not searched TATL itineraries maybe that is where the value lies....

It really is market-based. I might get better deals searching from AUS than you get searching from RST/MSP/CID/etc. I’ve seen low differential prices on both TPAC and TATL itineraries this year (the $150 segments I mentioned: one was ICN-SFO-AUS and one was GVA-EWR-AUS).

I thought that was the case, but then I see this? The lowest fares aren't upgradeable?

The upgrade search is fatally broken and should never be used.

Every non-BE fare is upgradeable with PlusPoints.

Yeah it's expensive. I flew PP to Tokyo last year on an R fare. It was $1800 round trip, and the planes were half empty.

Asian carriers (including SQ) often have fares in the $1200 range for PE round trips to Asia.

Yeah. Exception seems to be SQ's EWR-SIN on PE usually on sale for ~$1000

I've booked many premium plus seats both TPAC and TATL (from SFO), and they have always been very reasonably prices, usually less than $200 a leg over cheapest eco (always R fares). Worth it in my opinion! They also seem to pretty consistently be overbooking PP by large margins, making booking PP more or less essential to have a chance of an upgrade (at least as far as I can tell...)

I found this out the hard way (although lucky!). I had to call to book my ticket because a change fee should have been waived but it wasn't showing up in the old reservation.
The agent quoted me a price nearly $200 cheaper than what the website stated -- and what I would have booked if I was able to do it online.
I realize now I was stupid since there was a cheaper fare that SHOULD have been upgrade able. But until I read this thread I had no idea to look for it.

What I don't understand is why they're not putting more money into fixing these IT problems instead of painting Star Wars on planes, stupid child-themed amenity kits and elaborately wasteful 1K boxes to hold a card and a couple bag tags. Don't even get me started on coasters and cheap wireless chargers.

Yeah - I just booked PP transatlantic for $1250 round trip when the cheapest I could find in Y on any airline was about $1050.