First time booking an MUA need help
 

Hi. I haven't booked an international flight in forever and have not booked United in the past.
I am a credit card holder and I have about 145,000ish points. I'm flying from Boston to Barcelona in the goal is April 18th returning April 24th.
I would at least love to fly at minimum premium Plus on the way back and on the way there business class. When I look at the flights especially of the shortest duration as I don't think I could handle dealing with the multiple stops and the really long layovers. It looks like all the PN spots are zero. And for Jay there's a 9.
I guess I'm looking for guidance on what to do. I'm not quite sure if I should book now or if I should wait.
I really would love to secure seats but if I do the MUA and I'm on the waitlist I would still get back my understanding is the points and the fees and I guess I don't quite understand if there is an upgrade would both of us get upgraded or just one of us because I'm booking this for two people.
Any insights and advice would be amazing I'm kind of losing sleep over it. As we haven't flown in so long and I want to be as comfortable as possible but I can't afford to obviously buy a business class ticket at the price that they're showing. So the upgrade would be amazing. Thanks so much for any help.

Welcome to FlyerTalk!
Unfortunately, your foundational knowledge of upgrade space is a bit incorrect (PN is reserved for Global Services upgrade space, not general members).

Read thought these wikis for a better understanding about how MUA upgrades and waitlists work and then come back here to ask any follow up questions.
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...de-united.html
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...hensively.html
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...my-flight.html

Welcome to FT!, JPMM

Upgrades can be nice but one needs to prepared to flight your purchased seat. The system to biased toward elites, those with UA status. PZ is the fare class you will need to see. PN is just for the highest UA status, GS.

When you request the upgrade, you can request PremPlus or Polaris or both. Even if waitlisted, you will be charge the most costly option you select. If your waitlist fails, you will be refund the appropriate amount after the flight. Waiting to book or not, probably will make little difference in the chance of clearing but the price of the ticket may change -- booking international 3 months out is a reasonable time to purchase.

Honestly for a non-elite in economy, your chances are not great. Perhaps consider purchasing PremPlus, which guarantees a PremPlus seat and will increase you chance of a Polaris upgrade.

Thanks. Yes that's what I meant I did a little bit of research and the PN says zero. So if that says zero that means there's no upgrades sitting there. But I'm guessing a premium plus seat is definitely better than sitting in a regular economy for a long flight like that. Right?

Unfortunately in order to fly to BCN on UA you’ll have to go through EWR. UA has a nonstop EWR-BCN for the dates you mentioned. If that is what you want to do I would start looking for PZ fares, like WineCountry mentioned, on the EWR-BCN-EWR legs. Not impossible as a non elite, but you’ll be at the bottom of the waitlist, but there is still a chance that upgrade space opens before flight day when the waitlist is more sparse.
All of the topics listed by JALsnipe would help you immensely. You’ll learn from the best on here.

Welcome to FlyerTalk! Unfortunately, your requirements make this a tough ask. My recommendation for upgrading is to be as flexible as possible, both in terms of dates and in terms of connections. By limiting yourself to the shortest flights -- presumably one-stop itineraries through EWR -- and specifying particular dates, you're boxing yourself in quite a bit. The only thing in your favor is that April 18 is a Tuesday, which isn't a particularly popular day for business travel, which may make upgrading easier.

Even if you do get upgraded, that's going to be a very short and tiring trip. :(

If you like the price you see, you can go ahead and book now. The miles and upgrade co-pay are refundable if you don't clear, or if you end up changing your travel plans, and, as WineCountryUA noted, this isn't a bad time to book international trips for April. Keep in mind that you cannot upgrade the Basic Economy fare, so you'll need to purchase Economy or Premium Economy. Unfortunately, PE seems pretty pricy for your route on those dates. You may want to watch and see if the PE price comes down, even after you buy your Economy ticket.

Also, watch for a potential cash upgrade offer, as those can be a good deal.

Finally, just looking at the inventory on the EWR-BCN / BCN-EWR flights, your chance of an upgrade on Monday, April 24 seems particularly low. The inventory is J9 C9 D0... O9 A0 R0. UA isn't offering any discount business class or BE fares at the moment. That's generally a sign that they are at or above their traffic goals, and they believe they can sell the extra seats at a premium. That's also what's driving up the cost of the business class flight so much. If you could return on Tuesday 4/19 instead of Monday 4/18, the round-trip business class ticket would be $4400 each. Still not cheap, but a much better price than the $8600 you're seeing for a Monday return flight.

Also, if you're upgraded ahead of time, it's all or nothing -- either you both get upgraded or neither one of you do. That does mean that if UA opens one upgrade space, someone else can snag it if they're traveling alone.

If you're not upgraded ahead of time, your reservation will be split about 24 hours prior to departure, at which point you would clear independently, and it becomes possible that only one of you will get upgraded.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

As mentioned, PN won't do you any good. You need PZ. PN is only available to people in the highest, invitation-only tier of United MileagePlus.