Thank you! I was able to do this today with my flights and it worked!

Was just checking something on my account, noticed an odd issue.

On my reservation there is no indication I am waitlisted for a PP upgrade (O->J on AMS-EWR), however the waitlisted segment is listed in the PP summary.

Curious if anyone else has seen something similar.

Is anyone aware of a change to the treatment of GS-sponsored PP upgrades for non-GS?

I have a domestic reservation in Y where I applied GS plus points to both legs. One of them cleared a week or so ago and shows as PZ (which I know sometimes it does if PN/PZ is available when the upgrade clears).

The outbound flight was still waitlisted and I was number 2 on the list but is showing PN5. It moved to PN 6 PZ1 earlier today briefly and then back to PN5 PZ0 and I am now number 1 on the list).

The GS member is able to show confirmed upgrade at booking using PP which makes sense as PN is available. I tried removing the PP and then reapplied them from the GS account but it went back to waitlisted even though the same availability in PN remains.

Has anyone else encountered this issue? As we are 4.5 days out and J shows 11/20 booked and I’m at the top of the list right now, I feel good about just waiting it out but seems odd to me that it won’t clear immediately.

cash or award ticket?
Have you called? Auto-clearing can be iffy

cash ticket, though booked through Amex GBT as it’s a work trip

In My Trips page, it just shows how many PPs I've requested across several flights.

In the individual flights, there's no sign that I've applied PPs to each of those flights. I go to Upgrade Cabin in each page and it lets me choose upgrade with Miles, Money or PPs, though each option says upgrade not available, which may be because I've applied the PPs.

that's a good sign. Sometimes the 'UG requested' does not show.

I'm due to fly RDU - LHR for an upcoming work trip and the PZ space cleared at booking for LHR - EWR - RDU on the return.

As things tend to go, my outbound destination and date have changed by 1 day (now going to BUD first and leaving a day earlier). My return is still the same but there is no longer PZ space available on that date. I can't change the flight online (due to being waitlisted on the outbound RDU - LHR flight which is screwing the booking engine up).

My question is will a competent agent be able to change just the outbound and re-price accordingly without having to remove my PZ on the LHR - EWR - RDU return? Since is no PZ space at the moment on the LHR - EWR flight if the agent has to re-book the entire thing I'll lose the space.

My other option would be to just have them change the outbound RDU - LHR by 1 day and then just separately book an LHR - BUD flight

If you leave the inbound the same and you only change the outbound then a competent agent should be able to preserve PZ ... don't try and do this online!

Sounds good -- this looks like a potential HUCA so we'll see how it goes. The underlying fare for this ticket is O on the outbound and M on the return (which already cleared) though still at $2600 ticket.

When I called in the first time they wanted to re-price the whole itinerary for an add/collect of $750 which appears to be them trying to re-price the whole itinerary to an O fare -- but you can reprice it to be just about what I paid (plus or minus $20) if you re-book the outbound in O (as before) and the return just goes to H instead of M.

So I'm unclear why pricing is trying to add/collect and force this to an O fare the whole way. The underlying M on LHR - RDU on the return is still at M9 so they should be able to just re-price this based on only changing the outbound not to mention the underlying M is a higher fare class than H anyway. Any pointers on this one -- just a matter of getting to the right agent who gets pricing to keep the return in M instead of trying to change the whole ticket to O?

This is also a corporate ticket so the other option is to go to my OTA (AMEX GBT) but I'm not confident they will change the outbound without screwing up the cleared J on the return flight.

I don't really want to risk have to try and get the upgrade to clear again since right now it's Z5P0. I guess the other option would be cancel the whole thing and take the 8am LHR - IAD flight which is showing P9PN9 (but PZ0) and gamble that will clear since it's only a few weeks out but that seems unnecessarily risky too

Amex can't do this (preserve PZ) in my experience. Call UA to make the change. They will have to re-price the entire ticket; is the fare available? If you now book O out and M in ... does it price?

Yeah if I force it on UA.com into O/M it actually prices out ~$250 cheaper than what I paid.

I guess I’ll have to HUCA and this time just feed the agent the flights and fare codes and see what happens

Been here before a few times and as cfischer stated above the UA agent should be able to preserve the upgraded segment. Having said that I have had to HUCA.

I recently had a similar scenario with Amex GBT. When they reticketed for an outbound change it lost the confirmed upgrade on the return leg. However I got a very helpful agent with Amex who called United support and they reinstated the upgrade even though upgrade space had gone. Only took 10 mins and was frankly pretty surprised they managed to do it, but this may be the exception rather than the rule!

Geez attempt #2 was a fail too. Spent 50 minutes on the phone with UA with an agent who was working with pricing/ticketing and this time they came back and said that the add/collect would be $2000 (?) and then when I asked about putting it just into O/M, they put me back on hold and transferred me over to AMEX GBT.

AMEX GBT then said they could do it with an add/collect of $200 but I would lose the upgrade (and my flight is at Z5 so no way that is clearing again).

Geez what a mess -- I may be better of just canceling the whole thing and just rebooking it onto the 8am LHR - IAD and take my chances that P9PN9 will eventually open up a PZ for that return