My wife and I are currently 1K. I don't have enough PlusPoints to cover the upgrades to business for both the outbound and return of my planned trip to Tokyo in a few months. Can I cover the outbound with my own PlusPoints and can she sponsor the return (assuming she's willing!) with her PlusPoints?

I looked for the answer in the FAQ and elsewhere in the thread, but I didn't see an answer covering this scenario (i.e., using PlusPoints from two different accounts for the same reservation).

Yes, pluspoints just need to all come from one account to cover the LOF (not the entire reservation) for all passengers in the PNR. It just needs to be done as two seaparate transactions, putting a separate account number each time.

You can also do this with one account (request in two transactions) if you wanted to waitlist both directions (to at least be on the list) when you only have enough pluspoints to confirm one direction. In this case whichever one clears first gets the upgrade and the other direction gets skipped if an upgrade becomes available.

I have an upcoming international award ticket reservation that I booked for a friend using my miles. If it matters, her outbound is mixed class (economy for the domestic portion, and business for the international), so I'm only interested in using my PP to try to upgrade her return leg. When I go into the reservation, I see that 'Money' is an option (and strangely it's $1600 to upgrade to Premium Plus, but only $1700 to upgrade to business...who in their right mind would not just jump straight into business at that price point?!?), but when I click on 'PlusPoints', it says 'No upgrade available'. I realize that an upgrade might not be immediately available, but shouldn't it be possible to waitlist an upgrade for an award ticket?

Not unless you're GS, no. 1K PlusPoints cannot be used on award reservations (and even GS members can only upgrade awards booked with GS miles, IIRC).

Ohhh, good to know. I guess I've never come across that information before. Thanks!

Very basic question. I've scanned through several pages of the thread, but it is very long so apologies if this is asked and answered already.

I've requested my first PP upgrade, so pretty new to this. It's for a transcon, from PP to Polaris. It is waitlisted (not a surprise). Do waitlisted PP upgrades ever clear before day-of/at the gate? Of if you are waitlisted, do you just wait until the gate because they won't clear until then (if they clear at all).

No big deal either way, just curious. Thank you!

Yes, they can, and often do, clear before the gate. When or whether are questions for Inventory Management but my experience (usually international) is that two weeks out is a bit of a sweetspot. Generally, if mine are going to clear at all, it will be in advance.

Many thanks for the quick response! I'm perfectly happy flying PP, but I'll never get through all the PP I have (I expect) so figured it was worth requesting here and wanted to familiarize myself more with the system. Thanks again!

Apologies if this question is answered already but unfortunately I couldn’t find one.

my girlfriend has 40 plus points in her account, and will only qualify for 1K right at the end of the year.

She booked a flight on a K fare which is currently PZ0, RN9. If she applies 20 plus points now, can she make another request to upgrade to polaris later? If so, will they charge her 60 from PY to polaris? Or will they charge her another 80?

You can't pick and choose how many PP to apply, so your 20 PP application wouldn't work. That said, your waitlisted PP can be higher than your available PP. You just need to have the entire required PP available if your upgrade request clears.

Sure you can; you can choose which cabins to upgrade for.

OP: I don’t think there’s anything within the rules that would give her what she wants — a guaranteed PE spot with a waitlisted chance at Polaris. If she waitlists for both, it wouldn’t (shouldn’t?) clear either of them, because she’d need 80 PlusPoints. If she only lists for PE, she’ll clear into PE, but I don’t know of any policy that would allow her to waitlist for J at that point without canceling the old request (and potentially losing the PE seat) and then creating a new one.

An agent might be able to force it, but I don’t know if we have any experience with that or not.

That's not how I am reading at OP's post. The upgrade will require x PP, OP only wants to apply 20 PP, where x is NOT 20. All I am saying is if the amount of required PP = x, you would be charged x; you cannot select a portion of x.

Sorry maybe I should clarify a little

the aim is for her to get into polaris, but:
1. Polaris is not available right now; and
2. she doesn’t have enough plus points to clear into polaris (she only has 40 today; and will only get the full 80 needed to clear into polaris in a couple of months)

but PY is available today; and is the consolation prize if we can’t get her into polaris. So if we waitlist for PY and polaris and the 20 plus points for PY clear immediately, what happens with the rest of the request???

OP is trying to clear PE immediately and waitlist for Polaris. I don’t think it can work.

Just give a try to see what will happen. jsloan may be right that it cannot be done.