spartacusmcfly

Ok, so you got 320 PP for 1K + 140 PP left over from last year, totaling 460 in your account.

1. That means you were able to use 180 PP last year. The equivalent of 4 GPUs and 1 RPU in 2019. That's certainly better than a poke in the eye, isn't it?

2. Sounds like you may be traveling peak routes/times. As others have pointed out, that's rarely going to work in your favor. UA wants you to use your upgrades off-peak.

3. There is good news coming. When UA launches skip waitlist globally, you may be able to upgrade on a broader set of flights and potentially use more PPs.

So today, your survey placement is (a) not satisfied and (b) able to use 50%-75% of PPs in 2019-20. In 2020-21, if you could climb one notch to using 75%-100% of PPs, I'd assume you'd flip to satisfied. Let's see how the year goes. Good luck!

Mikerascan

I fly PDX-SFO-KIX all the time and always managed to burn all of my GPUs. I expect the same results for PPs on this route.

Things I do not like:
1. I used to be able to use an RPU to upgrade a flight to Cancun and now it is 40PPs for the same upgrade or 20 per leg.
I no longer bother doing this.
2. If I apply 40PPs to upgrade to KIX and include the domestic leg, I get charged 20PPs if the international leg does not clear.
As I do not want to burn what was half a GPU on a 90 minute flight, I do not request the domestic upgrade.

Other than these, the new program is basically the same. PZ was and is still zero on this route.

jsloan

No it isn't. If both legs clear, you should only be charged 20 points. If you get charged extra points, write in to get them refunded.

RobOnLI

jsloan is correct. It's 20 PlusPoints to upgrade PDX-SFO-CUN. However, you will find yourself in the same position as #2 . If you only choose to upgrade SFO-CUN for 20 points you can a) add-on PDX-SFO for an additional 20 points (getting you to your claim of 40 points); or b) hope CPU clears on the route. Of course, if you select both legs for the upgrade when you apply PlusPoints and only PDX-SFO clears then you will still be out 20 PlusPoints.

This is the single biggest downfall of the PlusPoints system IMO. That, and the inability to cancel the PlusPoints once an upgrade has occurred.

-RM

jsloan

Note that RPUs always worked like you mentioned (although there were occasional reports that instruments would sometimes be redeposited if only a short leg like AUS-IAH cleared). The inability to cancel PlusPoints once an upgrade has occurred is intentional and designed to stop the "have your cake and eat it too" practice that some people would use, where they'd cancel a confirmed RPU within the CPU window if a CPU looked likely.

For people on connecting itineraries like that, SDC can be very helpful if you win up in a bad PlusPoints situation, since an SDC is enough to clear the PlusPoints and let you start over.

Anyway, while I acknowledge that this is a limitation of the new system, overall the flexibility makes it worth It, in my opinion. Reasonable people may disagree, of course.

pianolover

jsloan, I think you are wrong, Mikerascan is correct, it will cost 40 pts for his trip to Cancun.

I have a trip TLV - EWR - ORD, upgrade space available for both segments.
I used 40 pts for just TLV - EWR upgrade, when I try to include EWR - ORD upgrade, UA is asking me for additional 20 pts

jsloan

I'm not wrong.

If you upgrade it in two steps, you will end up with 60 points total. (Also, if you're stopping for more than 24 hours in EWR, and thus creating a stopover, it would also be 60 points). If you upgrade it all at once, and it's a regular connecting flight, it will only be 40.

Although the display shows 40 and 20 separately, that's because it's allowing you to select which upgrades you want. If you select both, it will show you that you only owe 40 points: in fact, there should be text on the screen that says that if you select multiple segments for a given direction of travel, only the highest cleared cost applies.

If you upgrade it all the way through, and it meets the conditions above (no stopover, upgraded all at once), and it deducts 60, that's an error, and UA will refund the 20 extra points.

Pat89339

I’m curious as to how many of those satisfied are GS or 1K and whether they are in a hub or not.

getagb

GS out of ORD, 100% used although not 100% cleared. Satisfied.

Got a soft landing to 1K this year, we’ll see how it goes.

lhrsfo

As a 1K flying principally between LHR and SFO, I used or extended all my instruments from 2019, although some on flights I didn't really care about upgrading. I had never used all my RPUs before, so was glad to be able to convert them to PlusPoints.

As I won't be 1K ever again, I will have to concentrate on using this year's before 1/31/21

spartacusmcfly

Fortunately, SFO-LHR is a fairly easy off-peak upgrade. Two flights a day certainly helps as well. Also note, you can now upgrade from a discount fare to J using 80 PlusPoints.

So for a 1K's annual allotment of 320 PlusPoints, they can get two SFO-LHR round trips in J for < $1000 USD as $450 RT fares are common in that market. That's pretty impressive.

RobOnLI

Your reply is slightly ambiguous but that is not how RPU's always worked based on what I posted. You could apply an RPU (or GPU) to a reservation for whichever leg(s) of the journey you wanted. You could then call in and have the additional leg(s) added to the same RPU request for upgrade preventing the situation many find themselves in of not wanting to 'waste' PlusPoints on legs that are short in nature and are comfortable enough in the back of the plane (e.g. PDX-SFO). This is the biggest downfall of the PlusPoints system (again, IMO). At the end of the journey, RPUs (should not) were not refundable because they were used on CPU-eligible routes anyway so if any portion cleared they were considered used. Of course GPUs would be refunded (sometimes automatically) if only the domestic portion of the itin cleared. I'm not saying it's unreasonable to make PlusPoints non-refundable in this situation.

It's a perfectly reasonable explanation for why we can't cancel PlusPoint upgrades any longer (re: cancel and then get the CPU within the window). But we don't even have the ability to cancel upgrades before the CPU window.

-RM

jsloan

Yes, that’s true, and I agree that this is irritating. However, given the myriad problems that we’ve already seen with PlusPoints upgrades, I don’t think it would have worked properly anyway.

I mean, I think they’re using the same logic. I suppose they could have allowed them to be cancelled up until two weeks prior to departure or something. Anything less than that, and they’d have figured that people could suss out their CPU chances reasonably well.

st530

That's the right question to ask. I'm in the 100% camp as GS ex-IAH.

spartacusmcfly

I'd be surprised if there are any unsatisfied GS. The ability to force an upgrade at T-72 and upgrade a saver mileage ticket make it quite easy to consume PlusPoints.

IMHO, the unsatisfied 1Ks fall into three buckets:

1. Kids: Want to upgrade the family, but can't travel off-peak due to kids schedule, and therefore never clear upgrades. This was me for 20 years before the kids went to college. I feel for these folks.
2. Square Peg Round Hole: These folks get frustrated they can't upgrade routes like EWR-LHR on Monday morning or Friday afternoon. They simply don't understand that's not how UA intends PlusPoints to be used. It's like being pissed that Nordstrom cardholders get a free scone if they visit between 10-11am, and they can't get that scone because they're at work... PlusPoints is an off-peak program, but many keep trying to ram that peg into the hole and get frustrated.
3. Timing Challenged: Many who can travel off-peak don't understand when to look for PZ space. While there is certainly an element of randomness, there is also a somewhat predictable calendar of when PZ space becomes available. Folks look once, don't find anything, and get frustrated.

Last year, I was a 1K and successfully used 100% of my GPUs. xSFO, I found PZ to LHR, CDG, HKG, SIN, HND, TLV, EWR, BOS, YYZ. I had flexibility to travel off peak.