Rarely will anyone buy a fresh new ticket for an immediate flight in J from PUJ/CUN/SJD to the US. The opposite direction, yes. Buying upgrades, yes. But most pax for these destinations are of US origin and fly southbound a few days before northbound.

Hence a single simple universal solution, as proposed, has issues.

I am 1/1 on cpus this year which cleared not far from departure time. 10 hours before departure PZ2 was available and I was #1 on the upgrade list. Two others also got upgraded.

23 out of 25 so far this year across multiple airlines w/o being a top tier in any one, but success rate is going to drop below 90% soon.

UA Gold here, got CPU on IAH - SJU and SJU - IAH flight for both the mrs and me a few days ago.
Didn't get so lucky earlier this year on LAX - KOA and KOA - LAX route.
So far batting 2/6 on CPU on leisure routes. I've given up on CPU for business routes.

1K w/daughter on S & G fares:

Had been sitting on 400 PP since last year and had applied 40 PP for our LAX-AUS (04/09/21) leg which both cleared on the UAX operated E175 flight.

Initially had applied an additional 40 PP for the AUS-LAX (04/12/21) return but decided to pull the PP off @ ~T-28 hrs to test where we'd be on the upgrade list sans PP - which I'd tried to do via the Android app and which subsequently hung in the process of removing the PPs.

Called 1K and got a long song and dance with multiple please holds...Anyway, the agent finally indicated that the PPs were removed but it wasn't clear if our tickets were still in synch since we weren't showing up on the upgrade list. Perhaps a poor time to run the test?

Checked back on the app and checked in around T-24hrs and we'd been upgraded via CPU. Rechecking the list, 3 total were upgraded - two were us into 4C and 4D and a single into 1A.

Interesting game of chicken.

David

23 flights, 8 were 'Polaris' TCONs all Up Graded with Plus Points, 14 CPUed anywhere from T-96 to after boarding and the last 3 (if my math is correct) were on last minute flights that had zero chance as they were booked solid. My secret is flexibility.

Got the CPU for myself and wife at T-23h50min. It is a short hop on award tickets. We both have the United Explorer Card as primary cardholder.

8 + 14 + 3 = 25.

I had a flight for which I tried applying +P about 3 days prior to see if it would help. I didn't move up at all, so I tried to take them back off, but I got an error and had to call. On calling, I got a similar song and dance and hold sequence before agent finally said it was all done. From some of her mutterings to herself it seems like she also spent time annotating my record to say I'd requested them removed.

But then I looked at the upgrade list and I had completely disappeared. So I tried the old trick of changing my seat, and then I was back on the list in the same place.

Sounds like you cleared the CPU without doing that step, though?

For all my efforts I wound up exactly where I started, in Y and 4th on the list when the door closed. :p

Thanks, and I did check it twice :-( Maybe I was thinking of the two next week?

My count sometimes gets messed up when I've changed flights after CPU'ing the original.

We might have experienced the other side of that last week on our SLC-EWR flight. There were two of us on the upgrade list for 2 spots, and at T-35 minutes I went up to the gate agent to explain that "we're your two upgraders and we're sitting right there, but no rush." She seemed surprised and said "you weren't notified?" and she typed for a bit and then the upgrades were cleared.

Makes me wonder what would have happened if I hadn't asked. Maybe the computer would have auto-done it a few minutes later? Maybe we would have boarded in Y and those seats in F would have gone out empty? The gate agent's reaction made me think that she thought we were already cleared.

At T-35, it was too early for the upgrade process to be run. The agent is supposed to run that list at T-30, so that anyone who wants to buy an upgrade prior to the close of flight check-in can do so.

Yes, system would have cleared you. No, the seats wouldn't have gone out empty. Since the agents are expected to let system run automatically, maybe she doesn't know when pax are notified.