Upgrade using 500 mile upgrades
 

I have a bunch of 500 mile upgrades that will expire soon. I want to use them to upgrade an ORD to SAN flight in a 320 - from E+ to business - a flight in late March.

I did it online - and my itinerary now shows Upgrade Pending.

I hardly ever get to use these upgrades, so I am new to this.

Am I on a waitlist?

How can I see if there are seats available in Business for this flight?

When might the upgrade clear?

In the best of all worlds using 500 mile upgrades would move me into any available seat in business immediately. But, this is not the best of all worlds.

Where am I and what can I expect to happen between now and the end of March?

Dick

500s upgrade based on your elite window so you won't know if you are business until them. It would help to know what your UA elite status is, or you can visit UA.com for more info.

Only miles, CR-1s and SWUs upgrade immediately, if upgrade inventory is available.

500 milers do not clear at time of booking/applying. Instead, they clear a specified number of hours before the flight, which depends on status (24hs for general members to 120 hours for global services).

Upgrade pending means exactly that - you haven't reached your window yet.

Nowadays most upgrades are waitlisted anyway. If you're not a 1K your chances of clearing are generally speaking not great.

Worst case, 500 milers turn to miles at expiration.

to see whether there are seats available, you can shop for flights and pause your curser over the 'flight information' button. you do need to be logged in for this...but regardless, you won't clear until your time window at the earliest. it's also possible you won't clear until you're at the airport.

Do unused e-500s convert to miles at time of expiration or only at end of year?

AFAIK, at expiration. I also read here that you can call and ask to have them turn into miles before expiration.

Or at least that's how it's been done in the past.

It all depends on the route. ORD-SAN is less elite-heavy than many other routes.

They were still doing it as of last month.

Which, if I'm not mistaken, is in the past.

LOL. You are not mistaken mon ami ... ;) :D

I am Premier.

Dick

Then your 500-mile window opens at 48 hours prior to departure, so at that point you'll either clear or move to the waitlist.

As mentioned in post above, 48 hours prior to departure.

http://www.united.com/page/article/1,,50027,00.html

So then, 48 hours before your flight is scheduled to depart, your upgrade status will change to either "confirmed" which means your upgrade has cleared, or "waitlisted" which pretty much means what it says, in which case you will hang around the gate and wait for your name to be called for the new boarding pass. By the way, the premium cabin in the A320 is domestic First class, not business.