Finding Upgrade Availability for 5 TATL summer
 

Planning on taking a trip with the family to Europe this summer (5 of us). I don’t have enough for business class, was thinking of either just booking in economy or paying cash and then checking if I can upgrade with miles. I prefer to fly partner airlines (Lufthansa, Swiss, Turkish, basically anything but united). Is there a way to find out if and how many miles it would take on a flight I bought with cash to upgrade to business before I actually book something?

For United flights you can use miles and copay (Think +/- 35k miles & $450-$500 copay) . You are going to be far down the upgrade list but some routes you might get lucky.
For partner flights you basically have to buy an expensive fare to use United miles to do a Star Alliance upgrade. Lufthansa used to have a United miles upgrade award but it's only for expensive fare bucket.
You're probably better off looking for a business class fare sale with that many passengers.

While this is true, I wouldn’t expect a lot of US-origin fare sales for peak summer travel season.

That is highly route dependent. If you buy e.g. routes where LH competes with DE you can get some great deals. BOS-FRA, SEA-FRA, NYC-FRA and many others. These are not even a sale ...

There are also good prices with TK right now.

SAUA are near useless TATL - fare classes that qualify are just too expensive.

Or upgrade space opening, especially 5 at a time to someone with no status booked in economy.

+1

This summer will be tough, especially during Paris Olympic period. People are flying to elsewhere in EU then take bus/train/car to France. because higher airfare to France.

Ignoring the Olympics this year, August might be one of the reliably cheaper months for Business fares because business in Europe basically stops for the whole month.

However, these prices tend to have 120-180 day AP requirements so it's a little late for that now.

I had success last year with a cheap-enough fare in the lowest Swiss class for SAUA, however, this was for a party of one.

Plus, Germany is hosting the EURO, which generates excess tourism as well.

As others have noted, this will be extremely difficult to do. But to answer your question, here's the United landing page for upgrading on Star Alliance partners: https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/mil...de-awards.html.

Consider purchasing premium economy - it's a nice middle ground between coach and business. With enough flexibility, fares may only be $300-400 more than coach (per ticket each way).

Finding 5 positive upgrade spaces would be extremely rare during normal peak travel season.

An alternative might be booking directly with partner, given the parameter of anything but UA...and look for possible reasonable buyup/upgrade bid, even if not for all five in the party. You have to be reasonable here :)

To only upgrade part of the party (bolded emphasis mine), OP would probably need to make multiple bookings, grouped by pax who want to upgrade together.

Even Global Services would have a very difficult time getting five pax in business class for summer travel without actually paying for business class. With no status, this will be pretty much impossible.

Note also that while a purchased upgrade on LH Group carriers is theoretically possible, (a) the ticket must be booked under the native (operating carrier) flight number, and (b) if it's a UA award ticket, you can't buy an upgrade until you get to the check-in counter.

I am seeing NYC-FRA r/t for $12k for 5 pax on SQ in July/August. All depends on routes and perspectives

Yes, if you live on the east coast, the perspective is considerably different.

From the west coast, it can be difficult to find anything below five grand (per pax).

I was able to get 4 business seats at saver rates last year and let me tell you it was not easy. Hours spent searching, subscription to expert flyer, and many hours on the phone with united. I found that most of the LH options opened up a few days before departure as was true with both going to Europe and coming back. Unfortunately I don’t have another 650k miles , about half this year. I’m willing to put cash plus miles to work and do it in the best way