Wiki on this post:
I have a domestic leg in B and a PremPlus int'l leg in R. At least I wasn't able to see points upgrade options online for the domestic leg until today. There were "Not Available." Also called and tweeted to UA - told not able to apply PP points to the domestic leg in B. The Premium Plus legs are fine to waitlist/confirm.

"Automatic" means the normal process of seeing "upgrade now"- if I described incorrectly above.

that is a completely different problem which occurs with domestic prem eco fares. I have booked these before many times and it has always shown the upgrade option for the domestic leg which of course as a 1K/GS one needs to 'de-select'

My experience with the upgrade option for the domestic leg has been different. Perhaps it’s something about my reservation or it is a glitch. This is for an active reservation I first booked in March. I have been religiously checking upgrade options/cash price every week.

Happened to take a screenshot for my conversation with the UA Twitter support. No Points upgrade options shown for LAX-ORD booked in (fake) B. Personally I think something is brewing, but no ways to confirm.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...708415d16.jpeg

Might check again today to see if PP option has returned.

David

Have a flight from NAS-IAH-LAX for two both of us W fare. When I go to apply Plus Points for both of us it shows NAS-IAH available and IAH-LAX waitlist. I choose to apply for both legs and confirm. Takes me to a confirmation screen but here's the catch.

No Plus Points requested. No confirmation email. Won't let me change to FC seats on the NAS-IAH leg. Like nothing ever happened. I know those PP almost assuredly aren't going to clear on the IAH-LAX leg but I'd still prefer to apply them. Am I missing something?

The rules say:

"Requests that have been upgraded cannot be canceled, and flight segments cannot be added to an upgrade request that has already been placed. A new request must be placed for any additional flight segments being requested for upgrade."

So does that mean in practice that if I waitlist a long segment and it clears, I can't then request to have the PPs applied to a short segment after the fact?

The short segment is available to clear now, but the long segment is not. So I don't want to throw away the PPs on the short hop.

That's correct.

PP Waitlist
 

I’m new to Platinum this year. I have tried to apply my 40 PP to about 100 economy flight searches so far - different routings on different dates given my flexibility for travel, both domestic and international. I have not found upgrade availability to business on a single flight. I’m not big on waitlisting, especially since there is normally two of us traveling and I don’t want to risk only one of us being upgraded. Is it futile to search for PP availability upon booking? My routings are mainly to or from DEN, so maybe that is the problem.

Sad to say almost futile as you have discovered. It is very sad that United does not even give us a chance to Snag a confirmed upgrade and know we can use some of our points. I am sure these types of threads are going to get more heated as the Plus Points start expiring on 7/31 and 1/31.

I should share I have seen a few short routes where no P has been sold at all (EWR -> PVD) where they have opened up space a few days in advance. In these flights 1K will clear anyway. There also seem to be some glitches in the system like an aircraft change where space is briefly open.

NRTDEN Mar 25, two upgrades just sitting there. First route and date I checked. Easy.

Someone looking for two seats with 40 points is likely looking for domestic space, which is even more rare than international space.

OP: Confirmable domestic upgrade space, out of any hub, is rare. It’s somewhat less rare within, say, a week of travel — but if you wait that long to book your trip, it’d probably be cheaper just to pay for F in the first place.

IMO, it’s not worth choosing a specific destination because of UA domestic F availability. I’d suggest, book whatever flights you were going to take anyway, then go back and look a couple of days prior to travel and see what the upgrade list looks like. If you activate expert mode — a search on this forum should give you the thread with instructions — you can do a regular search for the same flight you’re already on. You’ll see inventory that will look something like J9 JN9 C9 D5 Z3 ZN2 P1 PN0 PZ0 IN0 I0… Those are bucket names and inventory counts. Platinum and 1K PlusPoints clear into the PZ bucket, so you need PZ2 or higher in order to be able to clear two instruments immediately. With this approach, you may well be able to find a flight where you can confirm them — or you might find a flight that’s got 8 open seats the day of departure and applying your PlusPoints might move you from #4&5 on the list to #2&3 or something. (You may also find that they can’t be cleared on any of your flights, sadly. :( )

Is there any seat alert app one can subscribe to that alerts you to when PZ buckets open up?

UA does not allow 3rd parties access to PZ (and will sent cease & desist letters if they try to).
UA Blocking Expert Flyer and KVS Access to R and Elite Award Searches.

On Premium TransCon flights, Why it takes same amount of points to upgrade from Economy to Prem Economy, and from Economy to Buisiness?

Doesn't make sense at all, to use 20 pts to upgrade from Eco to Business and the same 20 points from Economy to Premium Economy.

Based on past data points, for domestic flights with connection time under 4 hours, only 20 PlusPoints are needed for all segments, but what about the following scenario?

2 segments, connection time under 4 hours, one segment has positive PZ space, but the other segment requires waitlisting.

UA says 20 PP due now (for the segment with positive PZ space) and 20 PP due later (for the waitlisted segment). At the end of the day, how many PPs would be charged if the waitlisted segment clears - 20 (total), or 40?