The advise from wxguy and collegeflyer is correct. But let me add this note:

You will find many UA agents unaware of how it works: as-the-crow-flies, from origin to destination. Be ready to patiently explain it. I had an agent try to force the system to charge me more 500s some years ago. I flew ATL-ORD-AUS in F using just two 500s since AUS-ATL is 813 miles. But it took a discussion at check-in with an incredulous, less than fully informed agent, who was quite adamant that I owed UA four 500s. A supervisor reluctantly cleared up the discussion. That was some years ago. Perhaps the system can't be overridden now.

Keep in mind that UA will always allow you to upgrade yourself with 500s, even if you don't have enough ecerts in your account. Why? Because you can purchase them at the counter to support the upgrade. I watched a guy checking in once who found this out the hard way. He thought that he had upgraded himself on line for free.

I think a few posters have reported that the computer refunded the extra e500s automatically. But to be safe, you should just OLCI to avoid this problem.

Well..it WORKED..PIT-ORD-EWR was ONE E500!!!!

Now for 2 more questions....

XXX-YYY-ZZZ

X-Y express, no F, Y-Z has F. Does the mileage needed go X-Z OR Y-Z?


How about ....
AAA-BBB-CCC-DDD

A-B no F
B-C F
C-D F

Is it mileage A-D, OR B-D?

My example would be:
ABE-IAD-ORD-BOS. ABE-BOS is >500. No F ABE-IAD. Does that still get ONE e500???

This is CONFUSING!

I believe the answers are Y-Z and B-D.

i agree

agree as well.

mahatsaman, GoingAway, and bmvaughn are correct.

My IAD-LAX-PHL on one e500 was actually:

A-B-C-D-E with just B-C-D (IAD-LAX-PHL) upgraded. My upgrade was charged at just the B->D distance (IAD-PHL).

Before I figured all this out, I was shocked once to see extra e500's in my account after upgrading BOS-ORD and then ORD-YYZ with e500s.

I couldn't figure out where the extra e500s came from till I realized that I was charged for BOS-YYZ route only, even though the ticket was booked multi-city, and I actually stopped in ORD for most of the day...

Thanks to all for the quick (and correct!) replies. This makes my decision to NOT upgrade all the more correct!!!!

I've got this routing coming up later this year that I hope to use 2 e500s on:
SEA-ORD-BDL-IAD-SFO

I'll be 1K by that time, so the chances are *slightly* higher that I will clear. And luckily IAD-SFO is a 757.

with that kind of routing, its luck of the draw on how UA and OLCI interpret the routing for the calculation of 500s. G'Luck

Will let you know. It's a MR, with no stop greater than 6 hours. It all appeared as connecting flights on .bomb, so I feel that I have a decent chance.

I have a DEN-SAN-SFO that is booked as a connection, but it is showing on .bomb that I need 3 e500s for this. Do I need to call to resolve this? Anyone have a workaround to make this legit? I am waaaay outside of my window so no rush...this is in a few months.

When requesting the upgrades, .bomb calculates the number of certs required on a segment-by-segment basis, but will actually only pull the certs needed to satisfy the point-to-point distance if both clear in advance.

Having some experience with routes like this, I would guess that the .bomb might see this as SEA-ORD-BDL-IAD in one direction and IAD-SFO in the other. If it sees it that way, you kinda get an extra upgraded flight using 5 e500s on the outbound, but that's nothing to write home about.

Sometimes I think .bomb gets confused and thinks the "turn" in quick-turn/same-day round-trips or open-jaws is in the airport with the longest connection time, regardless of the actual O&D fare booked.

So depending on connection times this trip might also be seen as SEA-ORD and ORD-BDL-IAD-SFO, in which case you would get great usage out of 4 e500s.

Highly doubt it will be seen as essentially a single direction SEA-SFO.