Problem booking upgradeable fare on united.com?
 

I'm trying to book SWU-upgradeable fares (W and above) and it keeps returning S-class fares if S is available for the particular flight. It didn't use to do this.

Has anyone else encountered this or knows of a workaround?

Advanced Search, "I would like to use... Systemwide Region 2"

Note, however, this only works on itineraries that are 100% UA metal.

That's what I've done for years, but as of maybe a week or so ago (maybe it was longer), I noticed that it would produce lower (non-upgradeable) fares if these were available.

I've tried this on united.com for a SFO-GVA flight, and it's awfully complicated.

It's part LH metal (FRA-GVA), so it always comes back as not eligible for the SWU. The identical itinerary minus the FRA-GVA segment, in other words, the UA900 from SFO-FRA, then shows that the flight is eligible for the SWU.

So do I go ahead and book the entire SFO-FRA-GVA, and then ask for the SWU on the SFO-FRA portion?

Can any of you experts help me out here?

I guess the general question is that when the website says that the segments are not eligible for the SWU, is that *really* true?

As long as it returns a W fare (or higher) for that segment, that's the right way to do it. If it's giving you a lower fare class, you can't and have to call.