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The way of the Dodo? - 1K upgrades, PP or CPU

Old Jan 27, 2024, 4:51 pm
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The way of the Dodo? - 1K upgrades, PP or CPU

Old Jul 12, 2022, 6:37 pm
  #271  
 
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Originally Posted by Boraxo
The critical point was that UA - and all the others - are filling the First and/or Biz cabins with paid customers rather than free upgraders aka CPUs, PPs, etc. Of course this has been the objective from the beginning of time, but now the strategy has shifted from extracting as much as possible from customers flying on company-paid tickets to leisure customers paying fares that are often discounted below the pre-pandemic pricing.

thanks, that is the point I was trying to make. I had no intention of starting the discussion that I inadvertently did!

Last edited by WineCountryUA; Jul 12, 2022 at 9:29 pm Reason: Quote updated to reflect Moderator edit
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Old Jul 12, 2022, 6:42 pm
  #272  
 
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Originally Posted by Aussienarelle
I think Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the best days for upgrades and my experience is I have ways been able to get the upgrades using GPUs/PlusPoints/Mileage Award upgrades
Hoping you are correct about Tuesdays/Wednesdays for upgrades. I'm flying to CDG on Wednesday next week. 1K, PremPlus (R class fare), PP waitlisted, and 25 of 60 Polaris seats currently available. Besides my wife and myself, there are currently 20 other passengers booked in PremPlus on the flight (2 seats remain open in PremPlus). If these circumstances hold, then I'm thinking I should be a lock for an upgrade. I'm gonna find out that's for sure.
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Old Jul 12, 2022, 6:47 pm
  #273  
 
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I feel like the whole notion of Tuesdays/Wednesdays are best for upgrades and Mondays/Fridays/weekends are worst is a function of business travel demand, which is still absent to varying degrees on international routes. I'd venture that the premium leisure demand that has taken its place is a bit more evenly distributed throughout the week, meaning that upgrade chances on a particular day of the week might not be as predictable as it once was.
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Old Jul 12, 2022, 7:01 pm
  #274  
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Originally Posted by dkc192
I feel like the whole notion of Tuesdays/Wednesdays are best for upgrades and Mondays/Fridays/weekends are worst is a function of business travel demand, which is still absent to varying degrees on international routes. I'd venture that the premium leisure demand that has taken its place is a bit more evenly distributed throughout the week, meaning that upgrade chances on a particular day of the week might not be as predictable as it once was.
I’ll take that bet.

Outside of FlyerTalk, most people are not doing their leisure travel midweek. People want to book leisure travel on the weekends for the same reason that they want to book business travel on the weekends — to keep from interfering with work schedules. Most people are not going to fly on a Wednesday rather than a Saturday and thus create a weird short week for themselves. Some certainly will, but I doubt it’d be enough to even out demand.

To the extent that there is premium demand midweek, I suspect that it’s mostly because the fares were cheaper then.

Originally Posted by mfirst
Interesting experiment
my brother in law taking a red eye tonight from lax-xxx (not hub). Flight leaving in 5 hours and he has an H ticket with no status. I just applied pp and he is now #1 on the list with 1 seat left.

somehow bumping everyone else?

although it looks like they already cleared 3-4 from the list already.
Not bumping anyone; instrument-supported upgrades have priority over non-GS CPUs, and they must already have processed all of the other instrument upgrades.

Originally Posted by Aussienarelle
However, I am wondering if United has now factored this into their pricing algorithms as my most recent reservation for December and return January TPAC was significantly cheaper fare for outbound Monday and return on Friday. I think Mondays and Fridays are dreadful days to try and get an upgrade but the airfare was significantly less. I am watching to see if the airfares come down in price for midweek and would switch to them but I am slightly concerned and it is a 14 hour flight...so really hoping the upgrade happens.
Day of week has factored into airfares for years and years, but almost never in the way you’re suggesting. UA is not modeling its pricing to try to get the small number of people who are booking based upon the likelihood of clearing an upgrade to pay more. If your upgrade clears, UA’s reaction isn’t “we should have charged more,” it’s “too bad we couldn’t sell that J seat, but at least we generated some 1K loyalty.”

Last edited by jsloan; Jul 13, 2022 at 1:40 am Reason: Fixed typo; added non-GS qualifier to CPU note
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Old Jul 12, 2022, 8:42 pm
  #275  
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Originally Posted by jsloan
Ill take that bet.

Outside of FlyerTalk, most people are not doing their leisure travel midweek. People want to book leisure travel on the weekends for the same reason that they want to book business travel on the weekends to keep from interfering with work schedules. Most people are not going to fly on a Wednesday rather than a Saturday and thus create a weird short week for themselves. Some certainly will, but I doubt itd be enough to narrow out demand.
Agreed. I can't speak for others but most of my personal travels would start/end on weekends. Almost all of my travels on weekday not for work would be mileage run, something like 20+ segments in a few days.
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Old Jul 12, 2022, 9:24 pm
  #276  
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Originally Posted by mfirst
I sense that UA would sell a last minute upgrade for $2 rather than give it away. I’m amazed at how many F seats with PZ=0 disappear even with outrageous fares. I’m dying at 1 again for a cle-den trip and the last seat went for over $2k.
Nothing anywhere near that happens in practice. Yes, UA will try to sell as much as possible, but it rarely falls below $50/flight nowadays (a times in the past it may have been slight less).
Originally Posted by mfirst
Interesting experiment
my brother in law taking a red eye tonight from lax-xxx (not hub). Flight leaving in 5 hours and he has an H ticket with no status. I just applied pp and he is now #1 on the list with 1 seat left.

somehow bumping everyone else?

although it looks like they already cleared 3-4 from the list already.
That is what one might expect, moving ahead of all non-GS CPU. Appears no other remaining ungraded support upgraders

I did something recently on a 4 hour flight, only one that ended up clearing
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Last edited by WineCountryUA; Jul 12, 2022 at 9:38 pm Reason: merged consecutive responses by same member
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Old Jul 13, 2022, 6:36 am
  #277  
 
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This entire system is wonky
my brother in law with no status and h ticket that he bought 48 hours ago got upgraded at last minute even though first was full (my pp) from lax-xxx

but me, 1k, on a h ticket also from two weeks ago, also tried using pp, died at #1 again on xxx-den (in fact, Im going out on the same plane he arrived on two hours ago)
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Old Jul 13, 2022, 7:02 am
  #278  
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Originally Posted by mfirst
This entire system is wonky
my brother in law with no status and h ticket that he bought 48 hours ago got upgraded at last minute even though first was full (my pp) from lax-xxx

but me, 1k, on a h ticket also from two weeks ago, also tried using pp, died at #1 again on xxx-den (in fact, Im going out on the same plane he arrived on two hours ago)
Nothing is wonky; your flight just sold more F seats.
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Old Jul 13, 2022, 7:34 am
  #279  
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Originally Posted by mfirst
This entire system is wonky
my brother in law with no status and h ticket that he bought 48 hours ago got upgraded at last minute even though first was full (my pp) from lax-xxx

but me, 1k, on a h ticket also from two weeks ago, also tried using pp, died at #1 again on xxx-den (in fact, I’m going out on the same plane he arrived on two hours ago)
If first was already full, how did your BIL get upgraded?

Anyway, every flight should be viewed on its own, as the pax demographics can vary from one flight to another. Not sure any conclusion can be drawn from comparing two different flights. It's really the luck of draw these days.
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Old Jul 13, 2022, 9:13 am
  #280  
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Originally Posted by WineCountryUA
Yes, UA will try to sell as much as possible, but it rarely falls below $50/flight nowadays (a times in the past it may have been slight less).
Agree. In fact I've seen an uptick in upgrades the past several weeks, which I attribute to UA having increased the fare differential and upsell prices on many domestic routes. No one is biting at $149 extra for F on SFO-PHX, and the F seats are now staying empty those final days prior to departure.

Originally Posted by jsloan
Outside of FlyerTalk, most people are not doing their leisure travel midweek.
What I'm seeing is that in terms of crowds, Saturdays are worst, Mondays are best. July it's heavily leisure traffic. Upgrade lists have been really short the last couple weeks.

Originally Posted by mfirst
This entire system is wonky
Well it helps if you understand the rules
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Old Jul 13, 2022, 10:00 am
  #281  
 
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Originally Posted by ACVBear
FRA-IAD on 14 JUL is even P9 (seatmap shows 28+1blocked out of 50) - and yet 1k with PP (H Fare) continue to remain on the waitlist where i've been since ticket was purchased in April.
this happened on the way here too (except on way here i died at #1 on the list) - so i got upgraded at check in and now the flight shows 38+1 blocked - but shows no upgrades. the list length and order changed. odd.
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Old Jul 13, 2022, 11:36 am
  #282  
 
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On my IAH-XXX flight, we were 2 and 3 with PPs -and 8 out of 12 booked. Boarding starts in a few hours and it is fully booked and no one has been upgraded. The #1 on the list is still there.

UA still gets most of my domestic travel due to routes, but I have no loyalty. I fly Alaska, AA and DL when it makes sense. And I often buy F. And the inability to upgrade and ridiculous business class prices are why I havent flown UA internationally since 2018 or so. It is much easier to upgrade with miles on the European airlines. Plus, the soft product is much better.
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Old Jul 13, 2022, 11:37 am
  #283  
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I've been doing better this year than I expected to with CPUs. So far I've cleared on 11/14 flights and gotten companion upgrades on 3/5.

PP I agree have been awful. I've missed ORD-MUC and EWR-LAX by very wide margins though I did clear on SEA-IAD and on LH MUC-CLT
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Old Jul 13, 2022, 1:44 pm
  #284  
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Originally Posted by ACVBear
this happened on the way here too (except on way here i died at #1 on the list) - so i got upgraded at check in and now the flight shows 38+1 blocked - but shows no upgrades. the list length and order changed. odd.
The display of cleared upgrades has been broken for years. People who get upgraded are removed from the list unless it happens after check-in (and sometimes even then). Its not possible to tell reliably how many people were upgraded on a given flight.
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Old Jul 13, 2022, 1:47 pm
  #285  
 
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I'm actually doing surprisingly well this year as a Gold. I think 2/8 (DCA-ORD, DEN-SEA), would have been 3/8 (IAD-SEA) except I booked directly upfront since it wasn't that much more expensive.

The ones I do miss, I'm usually pretty close to the top, maybe missing by 1-2? I feel like this is very hub dependent.
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