Just looking for some insight on paying for upgrades on United flights.

In the past, I've paid to upgrade to a better class at check in or a few days before my flight. For example, at check-in on a 787 flight from MXP to ORD, I upgraded from economy to Premium Plus. Got a great deal ($299/per person) because our two seats were not together.

On another (more recent) flight, we paid to upgrade to first class a few days before our flight (not sure how many, but I know it was before check in).

I currently am booked on a flight from IAH to CHC via SFO on Friday. I'm trying to move us from economy to Premium Plus on the long haul leg. I requested an upgrade using points+miles at booking and we are waitlisted for that.

I can see there are 4 individual seats (none adjacent) available in Premium Plus (also happens to be one seat in business). However, none of these seats are "bookable". When I click on one to upgrade, I get taken to a screen that says there is no upgrade available.

I'm watching this like a hawk because we would pay a few hundred to upgrade our seats on this flight (booking the upgraded class originally wasn't an option because it was just too expensive). Based on previous experience, I'm surprised these seats haven't been released for paid upgrades.

Is there any rhyme or reason as to how United does this? Any tips for snagging two of those available seats in Premium Plus?

Once you've requested an upgrade, you can't then buy it if that makes sense. I have no idea how they clear the upgrade requests but I'm in the same situation as you are.

I was wondering about that, and it sort of makes sense, but it doesn't.

The waitlist upgrade is a combo of $ and miles, IIRC. I'm willing to pay more $$ out of pocket if I could just book the better seats now.

I can't remember if we requested upgrades on the last flight where we upgraded out of pocket. I don't think we did, but I can't say for sure.

Doesn't seem to be any way to opt out of the upgrade request, either. Not that I want to, but it wouldn't be an option anyway. And we have been put on the upgrade waitlist automatically (not requested) in the past.

Just remember if your upgrade doesn't clear, they don't automatically refund you the $. This happened a few years ago when I paid to get on the waitlist for a trip to Hawaii. Upgraded didn't clear and they refunded the miles but not the cash. I finally called them and they said "oh you want the money back too?"

drwong said:

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Just remember if your upgrade doesn't clear, they don't automatically refund you the $. This happened a few years ago when I paid to get on the waitlist for a trip to Hawaii. Upgraded didn't clear and they refunded the miles but not the cash. I finally called them and they said "oh you want the money back too?"

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Oh wow! The last upgrade request I did was miles only, and they did refund the miles. I checked.

I'm pretty sure this upgrade request was miles and $, but I can't find the receipt. Do they ever just deduct the miles and then charge the $ when the upgrade is awarded? Because I can't find any evidence we were charged any money.

No they charge the money and deduct the miles right away. I actually just looked at that this weekend because I booked the tickets in December and I couldn't remember what I paid.

I will say that last year, the same thing happened and I got a refund on the cash without having to call. So maybe they upgraded their process.

Paid to upgrade to first on the flight to SFO. Got a decent deal because we can't sit next to each other.

Still waiting on our long haul upgrade - there was no option to purchase outright at check-in, and we are still waitlisted.

Started digging into the long haul flight back home. It is an Air New Zealand flight that I purchased through the United website.

Because I purchased through United, I cannot do anything but move around the economy cabin on the ANZ website. ANZ actually has a bid option to upgrade, but since I purchased through United, we are banned from that, too.

Can't do anything re this flight on the United website because it's ANZ.

Did some googling, and it looks like I can request an upgrade through Star Alliance. Found that website, and put in all my flight info. Got an error message saying it can't locate my flight.

Oh, and the ANZ flight from Aukland to IAH has a UNITED flight number! But it's an ANZ operate plane/route!

Called United Star Alliance. They are telling me we have to "upgrade our fare class" to even be eligible for a Star Alliance upgrade. Not sure, yet, what that costs.

She's also telling me that our flight from AKL to IAH doesn't have a premium economy section. Which is completely incorrect. I can go to the ANZ website and see that there is a premium economy class. I can see it on my seat map, too.

What a fantastic way for both airlines to completely wash their hands of customers. Buying two one way tickets was cost prohibitive. There was no way to get home on United on the day we needed to travel, so we had to book the return flights with ANZ.

Force customers to buy a split carrier ticket, and then both carriers refuse customer service.

You might just try calling United and speak to a real person. I did that a few years ago and got what I wanted. Yes holding is not fun, did it late in the evening.

TexasAggie73 said:

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You might just try calling United and speak to a real person. I did that a few years ago and got what I wanted. Yes holding is not fun, did it late in the evening.

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I am talking to a real person at United.

Now she's telling me that this fare class upgrade we need in order to qualify for the Star Alliance upgrade, there is only ONE available.

Meaning, we have to PAY money to upgrade our fare class before we can even be eligible to request the Star Alliance upgrade, but they will only let one of us to do it.

And even we pay to upgrade our fare class, we still may.not even get the Star Alliance upgrade.

And she can't even TELL me what the fare class upgrade costs without dividing the reservation. Once they divide the reservation it can't be combined again.

And she's still telling me that this flight doesn't have premium economy section on the flight - only business and first. Which I know is wrong.

Not much of what she said even made sense. The take away is that requesting an upgrade for both of us is not possible.

Star Alliance is a JOKE.

Oh, and the best part - she said try calling back on a different day and maybe more than one fare class upgrade would be allowed. Forget the fact we will be in New Zealand, getting an upgrade just depends on what day of the week you call. Absolutely nuts.

Thought I'd come back and update because there were definitely some "lessons learned" on this booking.

Some other pax on the flight to SFO wanted to swap seats so we wound up sitting together in first class. This turned out to be a good call, especially since we had pretty much given up on an upgrade for the long haul flight.

I did get the premium plus upgrade on the 787 flight from SFO to CHC. They were calling my name as we were walking to the gate. It was a middle seat, so I took it and left my BF in economy with an empty seat between him and the pax on the other end of the row. Win-win for everyone, but middle seats in premium plus still suck.

Cost was 30k points only, no extra $. A woman on our hiking trip also upgraded to premium plus on this same flight, but she was offered it for $399 at check in. I would have preferred the confirmed upgrade, but I guess my miles upgrade request prevented that.

I also called United a second time (before we departed) and after getting to a third rep (finally one with no language barrier), she told me we didn't buy the correct fare class to be eligible for an upgrade. I told her we weren't offered any options and asked how you are supposed to purchase a better fare. Her reply was we should have called to book the ticket. Ok, so it's 1992 again.

While in the air to CHC, I noticed our reservation for the flight home (which was visible in the United app) looked different, and not in a good way. The seat assignments we purchased for the AKL to IAH flight disappeared. I also no longer had a working reservation confirmation code. We booked our tickets on the same reservation, but the confirmation code now only brought up my BF's ticket. Someone I talked to at United split our reservation (without my permission or telling me), separating our reservations from each other and separating the AKL to IAH reservation from the CHC to AKL reservation.

After landing at CHC, I went straight to the Air New Zealand counter. While very nice, the employees there didn't have "access to the system" required to fix our problem. She did confirm our seats appeared to be gone and gave me a "new" confirmation code for my reservation. She said I had to call.

Get to the hotel and call, wait on hold for 45 min, only to find out our original seats are not available (I think this was some sort of computer glitch) and have a very patronizing male agent rebook us in new seats (that aren't as "good" as the seats we had previously). Thankfully they didn't charge us again.

Try to check in for our return flights at the 24 hour mark - nothing is working. We are staying at an airport hotel, so we go over to the terminal to check. Agent says don't worry, just show up before our flight to get boarding passes.

Get to the airport a few hours before our flight. Agents can't even see/print our BPs for the long haul flight. I got mine for the trip from CHC to AKL only, but the agent helping my BF couldn't access anything. Three agents later, and too much back and forth, and we finally had boarding passes. We were also forced to check our carry ons because the weight limit is only 7 kg.

Asked about an upgrade - we could have had first for $4000 NZ dollars (about $2300 US). No thanks.

The Air New Zealand 777 we flew on was terrible all the way around. I would not book this flight or this airline again, if at all possible.

The preferred route would have been through SFO on United both ways (787), but that flight does not operate every day. We would have been much more comfortable, been eligible for upgrades, and would not have had our luggage confiscated.

Customer service was almost non-existent. Every person at ANZ I spoke to started the conversation off with "well, you booked this ticket with United". United washed their hands of us because they weren't operating the flight. Very frustrating.

If I want upgraded seats for less plus points or mileage upgrade clearance priority you have to book in at least, q,v,w fare classes which are lowest upgradeable options that actually give you a chance. So now on long haul I only search and book in those fare classws because you can clear any waitlists better because it is higher fare class

Yeah, we learned this the hard way. Our flight to CHC was obviously eligible, but the ANZ code share flight was not. There wasn't any obvious way to book another fare class for that leg of the flight when we bought the ticket, hence the "call us to book" comment from the United rep.

Yeah, I relatively never use a code share within a reservation, so could see that being a royal PITA for sure. Youd think star alliance would be better integrated

The lack of communication between these two airlines was incredibly frustrating. It was almost like ANZ was punishing us for booking with United.

Idk why they even claim to have Star Alliance if it doesn't provide any benefit. I guess just to collect the points.

Ughh. What an ordeal. Thanks for updating.

Read so many horror stories with code shares similar to what you described I rarely book them unless it's a very substantial cost savings. Sorry you went through this but hope you enjoyed the trip.

Aggie71013 said:

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Read so many horror stories with code shares similar to what you described I rarely book them unless it's a very substantial cost savings. Sorry you went through this but hope you enjoyed the trip.

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We did have an amazing trip, and this didn't put a damper on it at all (thankfully)!

I have code shared with United/Lufthansa before and not had any issues, but maybe I just got lucky. I never tried for an upgrade on those flights, either.

I actually tried to book two one way tickets, but that was significantly more expensive. We have a theory that United pays ANZ so little for the seats they turn around and resell that it's a very dysfunctional relationship.

Our flight from AKL to IAH was surprisingly full (I'd read mid-week flights usually aren't due to the increased competition), and I think it was mostly Kiwis (ie, ANZ customers) just using IAH as a layover. So no incentive to play nice.