ozflier

I wonder if all are experiencing the problem of upgrades not coming thru until much closer to the travel date compared to in the past . I usually try for H to J or D to F and I travel mainly transpac to Australia and transatlantic .
I find now, that despite booking 6 or more months ahead ,the requested upgrade (I am 1K ) either gets up immediately or does not and it does not come thru often until a week or two before departure .
This is occurring despite the seat map showing virtually empty seats ( I recognise this is not a "fail safe" method of determining the number of empty seats) and when ,according to UA Reservations , bookings are wide open .
This policy has slowly evolved over the past few years and I wonder is it related to an expectation that there will be a surge in demand for revenue seats or United trying to encourage potential upgradees to pay for the higher service class for fear of not getting an upgraded seat .
Is it your experience that your success in achieving upgrades has not changed even though the wait for it them to come thru is now longer?
I ask this question as I see plenty of bonus miles offers lately but what value are they if you can't access an award or upgraded seat with them?

redburgundy

I'm flying this Friday ORD-PEK, I've been waitlisted for a C upgrade since forever, there are 8 or 9 unsold C seats, but when I talked to Customer Relations today and asked them to check with Inventory Control to try to clear the upgrade, Inventory Control said No.

carbonchaser

Anywhere from 48 hours down to 20 minutes

iluv2fly

It's brutal.

On my ORD-HKG flight, got NC when I booked it (almost three months out).
The return, which is in 8 days, I got yesterday, even though there are still almost 30 unsold seats. I made two requests to Inventory Management in the past two months and they were both denied.

Booked a flight from ORD-SYD through LAX for mid-January. Approximately 60 (yes, 6-0) seats in C unsold on each of the over-the-water segments. No upgrades on either. Don't even want to go the Inventory Management route yet.

My New Year's ORD-IAD-MUC flights were upgraded on the spot when I ticketed 3 weeks ago. On the outbound, I found out that I am one of only three in the C cabin right now. Don't know the load on the return.

Global Services Status also.

Column4

I normally do the same (upgrade C/D to F on Trans-pac) and 90% of the time it clears on booking. In the rare occasion it doesn't clear at booking, it doesn't clear until the gate.

I must say though, of the ten trans-pac flights I have taken in the last two years on UA, it has always cleared, including four with my wife (who is also 1k).

If they were doing it to wait for the last minute first class flier, I support the strategy to hold out for the extra 10k in revenue or whatever a last minute F goes for now days.

mcgahat

I am seeing exactly what ozflier is seeing. If it doesnt clear immediately it is a couple of weeks before the flight. I also usually purchase D and upgrade to F and it is usually over the pacific that I am flying. I cant remember the last time I didnt clear and upgrade on those routes but hate to sweat it out....how terrible paying for C and actually sitting in D!

I do have a question on this line. I actually have wondered if UA hadnt held off clearing so they had more control over who got cleared either because they wanted to take people using miles over swu-s or even making sure higher status fliers got upgraded even though their request was two months after a non-status flier etc.

It is always nice clearing immeditely but if the inventory is there I just forget about it and let the chips fall where they might.

ozflier

I agree with your sentiment but there must be some compromise position where last minute revenue flyers can access the front cabin seats plus those using miles or certs to upgrade get an opportunity to confidently take advantage of their loyalty etc to United .

DreamlinerI

It has been my experience that this is happening more and more and it does not seem that they are catering to status levels. I have been wailisted on a HNL/SFO flight for 4 months now and not one FC seat has been issued. I do not understand how none of these seats are available for anything? I doubt they are going to get 30 some people paying FC fares on that flight. I think they need to lossen up and get back to the way it use to be. I doubt last minute flyers are going to save UA.

Column4

How would that work? After they have confirmed you, they can't sell the seat. Are you suggesting they sell seats they have have committed to frequent fliers as confirmed upgrades?

I can't imagine you would like that.

weero

The MP staff at the Sydney desk openly told me that from now - as more people qualify due to the new EQM scheme - upgrades would clear 'much' later.
Inquiring what 'much' stands for, I got the answer that it usually would be 48 hours.
I experienced the exact same situation as you did - I held a D and asked for a F seat 3 months in advance and got it 4 days ahead. Now I hold a full fare B for next April (flight completely empty as in your case) and no upgrade available.
I was told that I should not worry as full fare plus 130K+ year-to-date miles will definitely clear ... as if these year-to-date miles would be valid next year

dcr

My wife (who is 1K) and I are having the same problem on a European flight. We're booked IAD-MUC in October (with loads of availability). When she tried to upgrade with SWUs, was told it will not clear till later - even after an exchange with the 1K Voice, in which they indicated that they would try to get an early release of seats.

honmani2

Interesting thread. My wife and I are going to Bangkok in November. I'm a 1K and she has no status. The HNL-NRT segment cleared right away as well as the NRT-HNL segment. However, the NRT-BKK-NRT segments are still waitlisted despite the seatmap showing scads of open seats.

For some reason, I would think that the HNL-NRT-HNL segments would be unavailable but no problem there.

Oh, well, just keep my fingers crossed for the other segments.

1kBill

In my experiences over the last three years, I have cleared UG's (Y to C & C to F) all but once - about half the time at booking up to 1 week prior, the other half on day of/instant of departure.

Some observations:

Moving from C to F in 744, the magic number of "award or available to upgrade" seems to be 4. Once those 4 seats are gone, you wait.

Seats to Europe on popular travel days don't clear until day of travel.

Seats from Germany clear at the gate. Literally, and not one second before.

Higher fare classes definitely seem to accelerate the U/G.

Above done using both SWU's and miles.

ozflier

What I was getting at is that United should have some idea of how many seats they are going to sell and how many will be available for upgrades - they certainly seem to have known in the past . So, why not release seats,which from their experience or computer algorithms ,they can reasonably expect will not sell, earlier than at the "podium" as seems to be happening more often now. Flying is stressful enough as it is!
United has a big following partly because of their mileage plus programme - they may regret these "tightenings" if they keep churning out miles ,bonuses, elite statuses etc and the recipients come to realise that award and upgrade opportunities are getting harder or are confirmed so much closer to departure.

Column4

OK, I get what you mean, but since I have experienced 100% trans-pac upgrade success in the last 24 months, it wouldn't affect my carrier decision, and I assume they had some business reason for doing it. Perhaps that is too giving of an assumption.