Roger Lococco

Okay, so something is not working like I thought it would work. My wife and I have tried to use Plus Points for 12 straight flights. We have finished 1st and 2nd at the top of the waitlist on each and every flight - except 2 where only 1 of us would have cleared. On almost every flight, there have been a number of First Class "bookings" within the final 24 hours. E.g. We were recently 1st and 2nd on the waitlist going into the final day with 34 of 50 seats booked ... the remaining 16 seats gradually filled up across the 24 hour time period. This has been repeated on most flights.

I'm assuming that I'm missing something regarding how upgrades work in the real world. In the interim, I have 700 Plus Points which seem to be worthless.

stevenshev

Routes? Fares?

Could be a million things. Do you look at the upgrade list when it first becomes visible to see your rank?

In the current environment, getting two upgrades is not a picnic.

Roger Lococco

I do look at the waitlist when it becomes available, seemingly 48 hours before the flight. It has been very common for us to start 1 and 2 on the waitlist with a lot of open (unbooked) seats, remain 1 and 2 on the waitlist across the 48 hours, and see the booked seats gradually fill up to completely full by flight time.

WineCountryUA

Some idea of routes is useful and are these normal peak travel flights? A few others are clearing, what is unusual about your routes

bmwe92fan

Have you considered splitting the reservation? Sometimes if they only open up one seat for upgrade - and you are sitting there with 2 people - it will go to the first single after you….

Or you are on some really tough routes - my wife and I fly to Florida regularly from NYC and if we didn’t buy first - we wouldn’t be upgraded - the flights are that full and fares that cheap….

Roger Lococco

Lots of East Coast to SFO, DEN, or LAX and back again. Some international flights from the West Coast hubs.

I guess I’m more perplexed with how a large number of flights with a large number of unbooked First seats are filling up as booked in the final 24 hours. As near as I can tell, we’re not being leapfrogged on the traditional waitlist.

zombietooth

Welcome to the jungle. The promise of PlusPoints far exceeds the reality of trying to use them. I've done over 100 segments since January of 2021 and have only gotten a couple of PP UGs.

My belief, from watching the waitlists of my flights closely, is that many pax are buying-up to F within 48 hours because they're not getting upgraded. However, on many of my hub-to-hub flights, F is completely booked 2 weeks out, meaning that lots of folks are just buying F outright.

prestonh

Any y-up fare would book into F on a space available basis. That could explain what you are seeing

Roger Lococco

Would that happen in a batch X hours out? What I’m primarily seeing is First gradually fill up in ones and twos over the last 24 hours.

The recent flight with 16 unbooked First Class seats 24 hours out where we were 1 and 2 on the waitlist for the full 48 hours was bizarre. No one boarded during GS boarding. All of 4 people boarded during 1k boarding - two of which were my wife and I. One family with 7 people and another family with 6 people in First.

I would love to use Skip the Waitlist, but across a ton of flying in the past 2 years I have not seen it offered once.

zombietooth

My experience is that there are lots of folks flying in F these days without elite status. They're just cash customers who don't want to fly in Y.

Kacee

That's a fairly remarkable string, I suppose it could just be coincidence but the odds of that would have to be awfully low.

I will say it's pretty common to sit at 1 or 2 and watch the seats fill without seeing anyone get upgraded. That's generally a combination of (i) people purchasing paid upgrades (which UA is not offering you due to the Plus Points), and (ii) paid F passengers changing onto your flight.
I seriously doubt that.

Roger Lococco

Very interesting. I wonder how much the paid upgrade offers are for? Some good news. My wife and I have been #3 and #4 on an upcoming trip ... and have watched First gradually fill up over the past day without any apparent changes to the upgrade list. So I guess that will break our streak of being the 1st and 2nd left off. On the second leg, however, we've been 1 and 2 again while First has filled up today.

DELee

That there shows how strong the PlusPoints are right now.

Good luck. Oh, and probably shift to less in-demand flight times given that non-elites and some folks flush with cash (or high credit limits) are simply buying up as UA drops the cost of buying up closer to departure.

David

zombietooth

UA should give a prize at the end of the year to the flyer with the most unused PlusPoints. I personally know a couple of folks with over 1,000. I wonder how many ua1flyer has?

DELee

Right now IAHMCI may still be in the lead (What I Did for 2022 UA Status, 2021 Style - FT Tales of Qual and/or Requal)

David