Trying to upgrade
 

I just booked a flight for 4 (2 adults, 1 child, 1 infant) on UA.com. I didn't see a selection/filter for class (other than Economy or First) so I just booked according to convenient times. I would like to upgrade but apparently my T and L flights aren't upgradable? How would I have found that info beforehand? I hate calling the reservation desk because of communication issues - is that the only or best way to check on upgradable flights? Or is it a status thing?

How are you trying to upgrade? Are your flights international or domestic?

There is a page called "Upgrade Benefits" in the MileagePlus section of united.com you could have consulted before booking that lists which fares clases are not eligible for upgrade. And it does depend on your status tier.

I saw that (I think) but my question is, when booking, where do you see what class of economy that fare is? This is domestic.

All domestic published fares are upgradeable. It may be that there aren't enough upgrade seats available on your flight (and if you're all on one reservation 4 seats would have to be available at the same time..or 3 if the infant is a lap child). But you definitely can upgrade a T or L fare.. actually for international you can as well but there are steep copays. If you have no status on UA there will be copays for your domestic upgrade as well but much smaller than the international ones.

That makes sense - that was my next question, could I use my miles to upgrade all of us, or only me (the MP+ member). I'm trying to upgrade over the web, I'll keep trying and maybe get lucky (very lucky lol!)

If you're all on one reservation then it's all or nothing.. you can't upgrade just yourself unless you split off into another reservation (which you can do, but only by calling reservations).

After you select your flights and click on "Continue", the fare class is displayed under "Cabin". It will say Economy (W), Economy (L), etc.

Well that's a pain - you'd think they'd have a better system by now! :-) Thank you, I will pay more attention in the future or just buy the F class seat to begin with.

Continental.com has allowed searching by specific fare class on the intial search page for years, taking the guess work and "back-and-forth" hassle out of the process Maybe United will figure out how to do this someday...

If you are only looking online, you might want to call. Upgrades that I have been able to do in the past online are now showing "unavailable". When I called there was no problem putting the request.