FWIW, I think in my last 75 UA flights, there was one where the TOD was the same price as I could have confirmed first for. All the others were discounted. Indeed, I basically never book in paid first for this reason. I love TOD upgrades. :)

I do think ALL airlines have more discounted F at booking than they used to, which is a great thing. But my experience is that almost always, the lowest F fare comes in a TOD upgrade, unless there are just no F seats left at all.

I haven't had a TOD offer for at least a year that was less than the difference in fare, and in fact, it's usually more than the initial fare difference.

As far as notifications, I don't need an email to tell me I got upgraded. It's really obvious when I look at my reservation, and I'm kind of a fanatic about checking my reservations.

Ah, but see, if you were really OCD like some of us here (:o), you would appreciate not feeling (as) guilty about only checking your reservation for upgrades every 10-15 minutes! ;)

It's a good month to be a silver! My wife and I were both upgraded this morning SLC-DEN. 319 with 12 F seats!

The website is wacky: Complimentary Premier Upgrade Requested is still displayed after CPU has been cleared. This is IAD-ORD on this Wednesday with XN purchase (Primary Explorer cardholder with 1K status). Nevertheless, my wife will be happy to know the upgrade.
Happy travel.

Does anyone know how CPUs on the new A319s with 12F are treated? I am scheduled to be on one tomorrow (still before 24h window), and right now it shows 7+4 blocked. Does that mean that once a 12F A319 is locked in, they will simply clear the first 4 folks on the list? Or will UA try and sell those out with TODs if possible?

On one this morning, A/C #4004 , they release the seats to the gate once they know the aircraft will be a 12F. Then the gate will clear. It appears as though inventory is still working though like a true 12 seat cabin unless no one wanted to go to BDL this morning from ORD as I cleared at T96 as a 1k on an E fare.

If they're blocked, they're taken out of inventory, so they won't sell them by TODs or any other means.

The main downsides to blocked seats for upgrades are that they may clear very late, meaning no / difficult seat selection and potentially no lounge access.

I haven't watched what they do with the A319s, though; not sure if they will release the seats at T-24 when they've committed to a tail, or if they hold them to boarding. If they do release the +4 early but do not run the upgrade sweep, then TODs can nick your CPU.

I was in this situation the other day. I never saw a TOD offer, but received my upgrade just before boarding. I think until they have a higher percentage of 12F configured planes, they'll be very careful about releasing these seats.

On my last CPU I sat next to a person who was on a Saver Award ticket and had bought the TOD SAN-DEN for ~$125. She said she flies a number of carriers for work in order to travel nonstop from SAN, but this was her normal practice for personal travel to get into F. I thought that was an interesting way of doing it especially for a low/no status flyer with some miles to burn--fly with points and then do a buy-up--especially if you aren't too concerned with PQM/PQP/PQD/whatever.

That's basically what happened - it went from 7+4 blocked to 'full booking' (someone bought the last ticket being sold), and then they swept the first 4 people on the CPU list into the expanded F cabin.

Did the sweep happen when it went to full or just before boarding (if there was any time difference for those events)?

And more importantly, did you make it? :)

Before boarding at some point - probably T-1h, but I do not remember precisely.

I was #2 or #3 on the UG list after the sweep - kind of surprised as it was going to ATL, and I have had good success on that route before when it came to getting CPUs.

ord to stl on the CRJ-550 tomorow, CPU cleared this morning 15 minutes after check in

I recently flew YEG-DEN-MCI and back. Have Platinum status, got CPUd on three of four legs. One was two days in advance, one was on check in, one was less than an hour before takeoff.