Lay flat flights with miles - worth it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does this work? You buy the economy ticket and then use mikes to buy an upgrade? How far in advance can you upgrade?

That's the rub. You usually dont' hear until a day or two before. Rarely, they will announce it a few weeks in advance if busienss class is really empty.

I current have 4 United flights to/from Europe in June and July. One direction in July just had the upgrade clear. The others are all "waitlisted". All are miles upgrades.

What is your status? Don't make an average person feel like this is a reasonably achievable option.

[Anonymous]

Here's an example. United 989 from IAD-FRA departing at 5:20pm today. There are 60 business class seats. 59 have been booked, so that leaves 1 open seat and someone got upgraded. There are 24 on the upgrade list.

Maybe 1-2 people who are already booked in business class will not show up -- changed plans, missed connections, etc, freeing up those seats. But if you're even #10 on the upgarde list, you're not getting upgraded.

You can see this on United's site -pclick on Flight status and enter flight 989.

And now for a fun one. IAD-SFO is full of elite flyers. Even the 12:30pm (flight 1742) which isn't that busy since it's a mid-day flight, has an upgrade list of 36 people, and there are only 20 seats, all fully booked. The 8am fligth (flight 700) is even worse -- 63 people on the upgrade list, and 0 got an upgrade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does this work? You buy the economy ticket and then use mikes to buy an upgrade? How far in advance can you upgrade?

That's the rub. You usually dont' hear until a day or two before. Rarely, they will announce it a few weeks in advance if busienss class is really empty.

I current have 4 United flights to/from Europe in June and July. One direction in July just had the upgrade clear. The others are all "waitlisted". All are miles upgrades.

What is your status? Don't make an average person feel like this is a reasonably achievable option.

On United, I use my status from another airline in Star Alliance wehre I'm gold, so that puts me fairly low, and why I have to pay $300 + 20k miles to upgrade. United elites it's just 20k miles to ugprade, no "co-pay".

I'm not holding my breath on the pending upgrades. At check-in time, I'll probably pay the $100 to get an "extra legroom" seat that gives another inch or two, just becuase i'm tall.

[Anonymous]

We recently flew RT to Europe on United - IAD-Rome, Zurich-IAD - and used points to fly Polaris. Although I love my little pod and having my own space, I just can't sleep well on planes, even while laying flat. Next time we'll consider Premium Plus RT to Europe, which offers footrests and more recline without the pod and laying flat.

For 12+ hour flights, yes, we'll still go business with the pods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's an example. United 989 from IAD-FRA departing at 5:20pm today. There are 60 business class seats. 59 have been booked, so that leaves 1 open seat and someone got upgraded. There are 24 on the upgrade list.

Maybe 1-2 people who are already booked in business class will not show up -- changed plans, missed connections, etc, freeing up those seats. But if you're even #10 on the upgarde list, you're not getting upgraded.

You can see this on United's site -pclick on Flight status and enter flight 989.

And now for a fun one. IAD-SFO is full of elite flyers. Even the 12:30pm (flight 1742) which isn't that busy since it's a mid-day flight, has an upgrade list of 36 people, and there are only 20 seats, all fully booked. The 8am fligth (flight 700) is even worse -- 63 people on the upgrade list, and 0 got an upgrade.

Thank you for going into the detail. Reality is that someone even United Gold and below has almost zero chance of getting a mileage upgrade on these flights. So that people understand the dynamic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does this work? You buy the economy ticket and then use mikes to buy an upgrade? How far in advance can you upgrade?

That's the rub. You usually dont' hear until a day or two before. Rarely, they will announce it a few weeks in advance if busienss class is really empty.

I current have 4 United flights to/from Europe in June and July. One direction in July just had the upgrade clear. The others are all "waitlisted". All are miles upgrades.

What is your status? Don't make an average person feel like this is a reasonably achievable option.

You don't need status to buy upgrades with miles. It doesn't even come to into play. Sounds like PP is using stickers/systemwide upgrades (or whatever non-AA airlines call them). But anyone can call up and purchase with miles at anytime. Those come out of a different fare bucket.

You probably know all this, mostly posting for others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's an example. United 989 from IAD-FRA departing at 5:20pm today. There are 60 business class seats. 59 have been booked, so that leaves 1 open seat and someone got upgraded. There are 24 on the upgrade list.

Maybe 1-2 people who are already booked in business class will not show up -- changed plans, missed connections, etc, freeing up those seats. But if you're even #10 on the upgarde list, you're not getting upgraded.

You can see this on United's site -pclick on Flight status and enter flight 989.

And now for a fun one. IAD-SFO is full of elite flyers. Even the 12:30pm (flight 1742) which isn't that busy since it's a mid-day flight, has an upgrade list of 36 people, and there are only 20 seats, all fully booked. The 8am fligth (flight 700) is even worse -- 63 people on the upgrade list, and 0 got an upgrade.

Thank you for going into the detail. Reality is that someone even United Gold and below has almost zero chance of getting a mileage upgrade on these flights. So that people understand the dynamic.

It’s true. At the moment I’m global services so I have a good chance of almost always getting upgrades but didn’t fly much during Covid so my status dropped way down the following year. I rarely got the requested upgrades for the next year and could see available upgrades and where I was on the list and then who got them. Very little movement for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does this work? You buy the economy ticket and then use mikes to buy an upgrade? How far in advance can you upgrade?

That's the rub. You usually dont' hear until a day or two before. Rarely, they will announce it a few weeks in advance if busienss class is really empty.

I current have 4 United flights to/from Europe in June and July. One direction in July just had the upgrade clear. The others are all "waitlisted". All are miles upgrades.

What is your status? Don't make an average person feel like this is a reasonably achievable option.

You don't need status to buy upgrades with miles. It doesn't even come to into play. Sounds like PP is using stickers/systemwide upgrades (or whatever non-AA airlines call them). But anyone can call up and purchase with miles at anytime. Those come out of a different fare bucket.

You probably know all this, mostly posting for others.

Yes, but you are talking about booking non-saver award tickets, which take a very large amount of miles (like 150k one way in business to Europe, 200k one way in business to Australia). Those are almost never worth the required miles.

It's the search for saver award tickets that is the real challenge and takes a lot of time and effort, but that's where the real value is in the game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does this work? You buy the economy ticket and then use mikes to buy an upgrade? How far in advance can you upgrade?

That's the rub. You usually dont' hear until a day or two before. Rarely, they will announce it a few weeks in advance if busienss class is really empty.

I current have 4 United flights to/from Europe in June and July. One direction in July just had the upgrade clear. The others are all "waitlisted". All are miles upgrades.

What is your status? Don't make an average person feel like this is a reasonably achievable option.

You don't need status to buy upgrades with miles. It doesn't even come to into play. Sounds like PP is using stickers/systemwide upgrades (or whatever non-AA airlines call them). But anyone can call up and purchase with miles at anytime. Those come out of a different fare bucket.

You probably know all this, mostly posting for others.

Yes, but you are talking about booking non-saver award tickets, which take a very large amount of miles (like 150k one way in business to Europe, 200k one way in business to Australia). Those are almost never worth the required miles.

It's the search for saver award tickets that is the real challenge and takes a lot of time and effort, but that's where the real value is in the game.

No, I'm talking purchasing economy fares then using miles (plus a possible copay) to upgrade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does this work? You buy the economy ticket and then use mikes to buy an upgrade? How far in advance can you upgrade?

That's the rub. You usually dont' hear until a day or two before. Rarely, they will announce it a few weeks in advance if busienss class is really empty.

I current have 4 United flights to/from Europe in June and July. One direction in July just had the upgrade clear. The others are all "waitlisted". All are miles upgrades.

What is your status? Don't make an average person feel like this is a reasonably achievable option.

You don't need status to buy upgrades with miles. It doesn't even come to into play. Sounds like PP is using stickers/systemwide upgrades (or whatever non-AA airlines call them). But anyone can call up and purchase with miles at anytime. Those come out of a different fare bucket.

You probably know all this, mostly posting for others.

Yes, but you are talking about booking non-saver award tickets, which take a very large amount of miles (like 150k one way in business to Europe, 200k one way in business to Australia). Those are almost never worth the required miles.

It's the search for saver award tickets that is the real challenge and takes a lot of time and effort, but that's where the real value is in the game.

No, I'm talking purchasing economy fares then using miles (plus a possible copay) to upgrade.

Yes, but as described above, the actual odds of clearing the waitlist for anyone who is not very high elite is almost zero on long haul flights with lie flat seats. So it's not really a viable option for the general population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does this work? You buy the economy ticket and then use mikes to buy an upgrade? How far in advance can you upgrade?

That's the rub. You usually dont' hear until a day or two before. Rarely, they will announce it a few weeks in advance if busienss class is really empty.

I current have 4 United flights to/from Europe in June and July. One direction in July just had the upgrade clear. The others are all "waitlisted". All are miles upgrades.

What is your status? Don't make an average person feel like this is a reasonably achievable option.

You don't need status to buy upgrades with miles. It doesn't even come to into play. Sounds like PP is using stickers/systemwide upgrades (or whatever non-AA airlines call them). But anyone can call up and purchase with miles at anytime. Those come out of a different fare bucket.

You probably know all this, mostly posting for others.

Yes, but you are talking about booking non-saver award tickets, which take a very large amount of miles (like 150k one way in business to Europe, 200k one way in business to Australia). Those are almost never worth the required miles.

It's the search for saver award tickets that is the real challenge and takes a lot of time and effort, but that's where the real value is in the game.

No, I'm talking purchasing economy fares then using miles (plus a possible copay) to upgrade.

Yes, but as described above, the actual odds of clearing the waitlist for anyone who is not very high elite is almost zero on long haul flights with lie flat seats. So it's not really a viable option for the general population.

What? You can literally call months ahead of time, pay your miles, and be upgraded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does this work? You buy the economy ticket and then use mikes to buy an upgrade? How far in advance can you upgrade?

That's the rub. You usually dont' hear until a day or two before. Rarely, they will announce it a few weeks in advance if busienss class is really empty.

I current have 4 United flights to/from Europe in June and July. One direction in July just had the upgrade clear. The others are all "waitlisted". All are miles upgrades.

What is your status? Don't make an average person feel like this is a reasonably achievable option.

You don't need status to buy upgrades with miles. It doesn't even come to into play. Sounds like PP is using stickers/systemwide upgrades (or whatever non-AA airlines call them). But anyone can call up and purchase with miles at anytime. Those come out of a different fare bucket.

You probably know all this, mostly posting for others.

Yes, but you are talking about booking non-saver award tickets, which take a very large amount of miles (like 150k one way in business to Europe, 200k one way in business to Australia). Those are almost never worth the required miles.

It's the search for saver award tickets that is the real challenge and takes a lot of time and effort, but that's where the real value is in the game.

No, I'm talking purchasing economy fares then using miles (plus a possible copay) to upgrade.

Yes, but as described above, the actual odds of clearing the waitlist for anyone who is not very high elite is almost zero on long haul flights with lie flat seats. So it's not really a viable option for the general population.

What? You can literally call months ahead of time, pay your miles, and be upgraded.

I think you may have gotten extremely lucky, or looked at an unusually low demand flight/route. As described above and in the linked article, it's very unusual to be able to clear the waitlist for mileage upgrades unless you have very high status- this is true across airlines, although United is discussed in detail here. It may also be that you succeeded with mileage upgrades during pandemic times when demand was low.

[Anonymous]

I would only pay for the overnight flight. Day flights are fine and you don't need to lie flat unless you are headed to Asia/Australia.

I am a 1 million miler on United and get upgraded on basically all flights.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does this work? You buy the economy ticket and then use mikes to buy an upgrade? How far in advance can you upgrade?

That's the rub. You usually dont' hear until a day or two before. Rarely, they will announce it a few weeks in advance if busienss class is really empty.

I current have 4 United flights to/from Europe in June and July. One direction in July just had the upgrade clear. The others are all "waitlisted". All are miles upgrades.

What is your status? Don't make an average person feel like this is a reasonably achievable option.

You don't need status to buy upgrades with miles. It doesn't even come to into play. Sounds like PP is using stickers/systemwide upgrades (or whatever non-AA airlines call them). But anyone can call up and purchase with miles at anytime. Those come out of a different fare bucket.

You probably know all this, mostly posting for others.

Yes, but you are talking about booking non-saver award tickets, which take a very large amount of miles (like 150k one way in business to Europe, 200k one way in business to Australia). Those are almost never worth the required miles.

It's the search for saver award tickets that is the real challenge and takes a lot of time and effort, but that's where the real value is in the game.

No, I'm talking purchasing economy fares then using miles (plus a possible copay) to upgrade.

Yes, but as described above, the actual odds of clearing the waitlist for anyone who is not very high elite is almost zero on long haul flights with lie flat seats. So it's not really a viable option for the general population.

What? You can literally call months ahead of time, pay your miles, and be upgraded.

I think you may have gotten extremely lucky, or looked at an unusually low demand flight/route. As described above and in the linked article, it's very unusual to be able to clear the waitlist for mileage upgrades unless you have very high status- this is true across airlines, although United is discussed in detail here. It may also be that you succeeded with mileage upgrades during pandemic times when demand was low.

OMG. There is no waitlist on the fare bucket I'm talking about. Status is irrelevant. I do this frequently (monthly) for both domestic and international flights and have for 6+ years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does this work? You buy the economy ticket and then use mikes to buy an upgrade? How far in advance can you upgrade?

That's the rub. You usually dont' hear until a day or two before. Rarely, they will announce it a few weeks in advance if busienss class is really empty.

I current have 4 United flights to/from Europe in June and July. One direction in July just had the upgrade clear. The others are all "waitlisted". All are miles upgrades.

What is your status? Don't make an average person feel like this is a reasonably achievable option.

You don't need status to buy upgrades with miles. It doesn't even come to into play. Sounds like PP is using stickers/systemwide upgrades (or whatever non-AA airlines call them). But anyone can call up and purchase with miles at anytime. Those come out of a different fare bucket.

You probably know all this, mostly posting for others.

Yes, but you are talking about booking non-saver award tickets, which take a very large amount of miles (like 150k one way in business to Europe, 200k one way in business to Australia). Those are almost never worth the required miles.

It's the search for saver award tickets that is the real challenge and takes a lot of time and effort, but that's where the real value is in the game.

No, I'm talking purchasing economy fares then using miles (plus a possible copay) to upgrade.

Yes, but as described above, the actual odds of clearing the waitlist for anyone who is not very high elite is almost zero on long haul flights with lie flat seats. So it's not really a viable option for the general population.

What? You can literally call months ahead of time, pay your miles, and be upgraded.

I think you may have gotten extremely lucky, or looked at an unusually low demand flight/route. As described above and in the linked article, it's very unusual to be able to clear the waitlist for mileage upgrades unless you have very high status- this is true across airlines, although United is discussed in detail here. It may also be that you succeeded with mileage upgrades during pandemic times when demand was low.

OMG. There is no waitlist on the fare bucket I'm talking about. Status is irrelevant. I do this frequently (monthly) for both domestic and international flights and have for 6+ years.

You are going to have to go into more detail in that case. Are you talking about booking R class Premium Plus fares, and then upgrading those using miles? That may be a viable option, but you need to have PZ availability. That is very rare months in advance. It does happen more frequently before departure, and yes booking a Premium Plus fare (which are much more expensive than economy and often not that much cheaper than cash business fares) will get you higher on the waitlist than anyone coming from economy, including 1K and GS members.

But again, to understand what you are talking about, you will have to go into much more detail- fare class paid for, flight info (I really doubt this is happening on high demand flights), your status, etc. If it was as easy as you seem to make it, upgrades would be much more common and the airlines wouldn't be able to charge high business class fares internationally if it was this easy to upgrade with miles. That's why it's so hard on long haul flights.