How To Upgrade to Business/First Class on United Airlines Flights

Hi and thank you for all the great information. My question is does the number of seats in a fare class change between now and flight departure? I am a Premier 1K and have purchased a W class economy ticket and applied the GPU’s to get moved to Polaris. However, right now it does not look like there are any of those fare codes available. I would assume they do open then get filled based on the qualifications you describe above but I am not certain. Follow up question is there any sense of when that happens? i.e. any point? a month before? 4 days before, etc…-Thanks in advance!

PN is only for Global Services not GS + 1K.

Hi, I have a K class United ticket bought through a travel agency.
Can I upgrade it to business class?

Great info thanks! Looking to book a return flight from SYD to IAH in November for a honeymoon and the only option to upgrade with miles is 30K plus $600 and to get on a waitlist. I checked on Expertflyer and using the expert search with United I don’t see any seats available now. Don’t currently have any status with United. Basically trying to figure out my odds. As the flight is not until November, not sure how United typically handles their seats.

Can I use my United Chase or Chase Sapphire card to buy miles from United and earn points on the cost of the miles?

Thank you for all the information! I previously purchased a “bundle” for Economy Plus and checked bag. Now, I have an offer to upgrade my cabin to business (which would include a checked bag). Do you happen to know if I would get a refund for my previously purchased bundle, or at least a partial refund for the seat upgrade and now I can check 2 bags, if I went ahead and upgraded my cabin? TIA.

Christine,
If I am booking a Y,M or B fare, looks like I’m getting auto added to the upgrade list for 1st class. Am I guaranteed a seat if they don’t sell out or is it just better odds as a Premier Silver member to get the upgrade? Also, in what cases does a W fare benefit from the higher cost? Thanks!

You are eligible for a CPU for mileage tickets if you’re Global Services.

Hi Christine, thank you for your insightful article. I’m currently booked on a flight from EDI-EWR on B class, and was thinking of upgrading using United miles. It states that it costs 20,000 miles and I will be placed on waitlist. I’m a new member to United Mileage Plus, hence I have zero miles available. I was thinking of purchasing 20,000 miles (applying a 75% bonus) to perform this upgrade (which will cost approximately $500). However, I don’t want to pay for the miles and not get the upgrade…

I’m a *G member with Turkish, not sure if that is of any help on this hierarchy. I am flying this Sunday so any help would be very very much appreciated!

Hi! I realize this is an older article, but I’d appreciate any advice. I worked for DL years ago, but I’ve been living in UA country and have been racking up the miles out of EWR through flights, promos, and my Chase card.
I’m planning a trip from EWR-TLV in the spring, and UA’s upgradeable economy fares are relatively affordable right now. For a flight this long, we’d LOVE to have Polaris Business, and I’ve got more than enough miles for the upgrade (but not a business award ticket) thanks to my Chase Explorer Card, and even with the co-pay it’s reasonable.
Here’s my question. You mention that time of request is one of the criteria for clearing mileage upgrades, but so is Premier status. I will hit Silver status after a trip I’m taking in November to SAN.
Is it worth waiting until *after* I hit Silver status to buy the tickets, or should I buy the tickets *now* and get on the waitlist? In other words, would my Silver status affect my place on the list if I weren’t yet Silver when I got on the list?
Thanks!

Wondering if you know. If I use miles to upgrade on a flight with no upgrade availability and I am put on the waitlist, will they refund me my miles / co-pay if I don’t end up getting the upgrade?

I have a quick Star alliance upgrade question. If I’m on an Aeroplan (Air Canada mileage flight) economy X fare, can I upgrade to business/first class with my Aeroplan miles, or would i have to have some United Miles in order to be able to complete the upgrade? Thanks! Awesome article btw!

Thank you for an informative article, but I’m wondering if I can reverse-engineer things a little bit. I found an economy class award flight on the United website for a Star Alliance Partner airline flight that I wanted, but I’m wondering if I can redeem my miles for the economy award, and then pay to upgrade to premium economy or business class?

Nice article for clearing up a lot of questions I have.

To upgrade a purchased ticket for a partner airline, does the original ticket need to be purchased through UAL or can one purchase this ticket directly on the partner airline?

I purchased one premium economy ticket for $1650. However, soon thereafter the price shot up between $3500 and $4600. This was more than two months ago and has it has not really gone down. Trying to figure out how to proceed.

I can purchase a United flexible economy ticket for $1700, class H, and use 65,000 miles to put myself on the wait list to upgrade. However this is not guaranteed and I believe the people with status go ahead so I don’t know the odds of me actually getting this upgrade. As it is refundable, I can always purchase a lower price ticket and then downgrade my wife’s (other) ticket, adding the cost of $165 and a credit for the difference.

I can consider costs up to this ~2300, but not that enthusiastic about going higher.

Anyone with any ideas for me? Anyone understand this upgrade process through United and the odds of me actually getting this by proceeding with a higher price ticket?

Thanks!

I am Gold Premier status/1 million miler on United, and I will be flying home from Shanghai (PVG) via SFO to Portland (PDX) in about 10 days. On United’s site I just requested an upgrade to Business class for 30,000 miles / $600. Here is my concern: what if no upgrade is available from PVG to SFO, but there *is* an upgrade available for SFO-PDX. I don’t want to waste the money and miles on the short SFO-PDX leg, and I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to call or talk to agents, etc. after I’m in China. How can I tell United in advance “don’t bother with the miles/paid upgrade for SFO-PDX if I don’t get the upgrade from PVG-SFO”? Thanks.

Thanks for an interesting article. I will get 1K status with United in a couple of months. I travel quite often on Star Alliance between Europe and SFO. My question is how likely is it to use a Global Premier Upgrade on my transatlantic trip? Is there a specific leg where this is more likely? Is it better to/from big hubs like Frankfurt, Paris, London or Amsterdam or do I have more of a chance from smaller airports like Munich? Are there other factors I should consider when trying to snag that upgrade?

Are authorized users on the United Credit card considered to be cardholders for Elite Award Ticket Upgrades?

I am Premier Platinum and a United Explorer Cardholder. I have booked award tickets for my wife and I within the US. I know that as an elite and a cardholder I am still CPU eligible on those flights. The question I have is, whether or not my wife is eligible for the upgrade as well, because she is on an award ticket on the same PNR as myself?

I am a United 1K Member. I have never received a complimentary upgrade on a long haul flight. Most of my tickets are either Class Q or U. Is this common?

Thanks for the article! I’m normally fine with E+ going to Europe from the East Coast, but in this case I have a very long layover between the IAD-ZRH leg and ZRH-CMB leg, so I’m considering upgrading the first leg with points and miles. For those of you do this more frequently, is 20k miles +$500 a decent deal for a 10 hour flight? This will take place once the “true Polaris” is in place IAD-ZRH, and IAD Polaris Lounge is slated to be open by then. If it helps, I am United Gold.

I upgraded my main cabin award ticket (7000 points, sfo-las) to economy plus with cash. Then I upgraded to first class a day before the flight for more cash. Apparently you CAN upgrade an award ticket to first class with cash. (It WAS showing as not upgradeable before I purchased an economy plus seat.)
My question and what I’m watching my account for is “what kind of points or earnings toward status might there be from this?” I am not seeing anything yet after 2 days.

Hello! I’ve got a question regarding a 40 point upgrade request on an United Airlines flight from Singapore to SFO on 02/06. I had been waitlisted for a few weeks and on the day of departure was told by the UA gate agent that my upgrade request would not be honored.

Since I had been upgraded on the flight out, same class of service and same 40 point upgrade, I just assumed that I had heard the gate agent incorrectly and accepted that I would be in coach class for the next 15 hours due to it being a full flight.

However, I overheard a conversation regarding 3 open seats in business class. Upon landing, I spoke to the gate agent and was told that there were actually 5 open seats in Business Class. I was also told that I had been removed from the standby list by the gate agent in Singapore w/no documentation as to why.

The gate agent had recommended that I contact United via the feedback section of their website. Unfortunately, the only response from UA has been a generic form email advising that the aircraft can only fit so many people, etc.

How can I get a legit answer as to why I was removed from the standby list? I was dressed appropriately, freshly showered, and did not question anything until arriving into SFO in coach class.

Help? Please?

Hello, I have a quick question.

Can I purchase an upgrade (like economy plus seats and priority boarding) after booking an economy award through a partner like ANA?

Hi,
Which Class of travel in economy class should be Upgradable to business class using United Airlines miles?
Y B M E U H Q V W S T L K G N Please Help.

Found this article through a Google search, so when I use the advance search option to look for upgrade options, I see and am able to select a cash plus miles option for the flight I want. If I choose this, is it a guaranteed upgrade instantly or a waitlist? I have no status with United, just a Mileage Plus member with the United credit card, planning to use the 70,000 bonus miles I received for the upgrade, but want to make sure it happens right away so I can select a seat and be assured of the upgrade to first class, and don’t want to be on the upgrade list until departure day.

I have a trip to London coming up. I upgraded to Polaris from economy plus just for the longest flights there and back (Paying cash). I had already paid for my bags in advance. I noticed that I have free baggage and entrance to lounges with Polaris. Does this apply to all legs of my trip? Will I get a refund for the baggage fees I paid in advance? I just cannot get hold of United at all at the moment. Thanks.

So what if you use award miles to upgrade SFO to ORD then ORD to EWR, and you get upgraded from SFO to ORD, but the 2nd flight doesn’t upgrade. Do they prorate any of the miles or do you just lose it all for just 1 out of 2 segments?

I am Premier Silver. Can you tell me what benefits are available to me/my party for a trip from Chicago to London? Free bags? Preferred seating with economy purchase? Economy plus at check-in? Automatic complimentary upgrade when available? Thanks!

Hello! I love your site but am utterly confused. My husband is United Gold and I am United Silver (very close to Gold status) and we would like to travel together to Bordeaux, France from Chicago in late August/September 2022. The MUA is ridiculous and only offers 2 stop options. We would really like to fly Business Class which right now runs ~$4,000 per traveler. What would be your strategy for purchasing a ticket? There do not appear to be any discounted Business Class options now (only P) and Premium Economy is offered in A. Last year we traveled to Portugal on Lufthansa and we were easily able to upgrade from Premium Economy to Business with $500 extra each, which was a bargain (perhaps it was due to cancellations from COVID?) How would you approach this? Any advice you can give would be very much appreciated!!!!

In this time of frequent changes and positive covid results, what happens if you’ve already paid cash and miles for a waitlist upgrade?
Specifically can you speak to if your co-pay and miles are refunded, transferred or lost:
1) If you have to cancel a trip
2) If the airline cancels a flight and you’re forced to find an an alternative itinerary?

Does the outcome change based on whether your upgrade has cleared or not?

With this much uncertainty, I’m very reluctant to request an upgrade if I may lose the money and miles it cost me.

Hi. If I have silver status on Star Alliance (due to my silver status on one of the participating airlines), can I get a complimentary upgrade?
Thanks a lot!

Logged into my United account on two different browsers. There is no such thing as “search preferences”.

Hello–great site, found it using google and glad I did.

Hopefully you can “unconfuse” me too 😉 Premiere Platinum member here, also flying with my daughter on a different reservation #. She is a Silver member.

Flying from Guam to PHX via Narita/LAX. Booked my ticket online and then called United to work out my daughter’s flight since she is only 11 (flying back with her Mom on a later date).

My hope was to try and fly out Business/Polaris–so I booked us in the New Premium Plus seating (with the advice of the United Rep) because that will put us in a higher priority to get to Polaris.
Flights are Guam-NRT (B) fare class, NRT-LAX (R) Fare Class, and LAX-PHX (B) fare class.

So here is my issue–when I go to look at upgrade my cabin— it shows that the (B) fare flights –Mileage Upgrade Requested but on the (R) fare (NRT-LAX) it doesn’t show anything. I know that on the site it doesn’t show as a “Complimentary Upgrade” route–but that was the whole reason I got the Premiere Plus seats. Did I waste my money? Could have gone with Economy Plus and the copay/miles for the upgrade. Or will it work out with us being on the waiting list as the flight gets closer? It’s not until June 18th.

Hope I didn’t confuse you–but hoping you might have some insight or advice for my situation. Thank you.

Looking at booking a 10 year anniversary trip SEA to PUJ. On Chase’s travel portal they have a fare listed as “First or Business” that is cheaper than most economy fares. It has SEA to IAD as a H economy fare and then IAD to PUJ as a business fare. It says Business but it’s a 737-900 so only first/coach which I’m assuming is first. So if I purchase that does that mean I’m waitlisted for first in the SEA to IAD flight? Ironically looking at the seat map there are more first seats open SEA-IAD then IAD PUJ. Thanks for any insight

I’m looking to use a MUA to upgrade to Polaris for a flight from Lisbon to Newark. If the “available fare classes” in expert mode show H0 for instance, does that mean there is basically no possibility of being upgraded using MUA if you buy a H class ticket?

I booked a flight from Boston to London using points from Chase Travel Portal. I have an Economy K fare seat right now. If I pay to upgrade my seat to Economy Premium Plus, would this put me on the waitlist for an upgrade to business Polaris?

I purchased the flights from HNL-IAH (B), IAH-EWR (B), EWR-FCO (R) on Premium Plus. I can request an upgrade to United First on B fares and Polaris on the R fare using miles/co-pay and on the waitlist. I have no status with United, just a Mileage Plus member. Is my chance of getting an upgrade on all 3 segments possible?

Thanks for a great article Christine! I’m currently waitlisting for 2 Polaris seats (I fare) from SFO-NRT using miles. If the waitlist clears, will they automatically put us in seats? Or I have to call to select seats? Or I have to keep an eye out for seats to open up in I bucket and call in to UA to request those seats.

Thank you for this helpful information! Random question. If I want to change the return leg of a flight on United, and I am on the waitlist for an upgrade on the outbound portion of the trip, will it rebook the entire flight? In other words, if I change the second part of the trip, will I lose my upgrade place on the waitlist for the first part of the trip? Thank you!!

HI Christine, thanks for writing this and really helpful. I’d like to share with you some drama using my United MileagePlus points to make a star alliance upgrade on what i thought was the most friendly partner of United, Lufthansa. So far its been just a nightmare. Let me explain.

1) I originally booked a Premium Economy (E) class fare from SIN to MUC on Lufthansa connecting to AMS on a Economy (Y) class ticket leaving Singapore on June 5th.

2) When I booked it I used 10,000 miles to upgrade the MUC to AMS leg from economy to business class on LH. That upgrade was successful (I’ll learn to regret later) I also deducted 40 Pluspoints from my MileagePlus account but was still on waitlist for the SIN to MUC long haul leg.

3) Due to work reasons, I needed to move my flight back a day from June 5th to June 4th. I checked online (I used Navan as my travel agent given my company uses Navan) and all seemed fine. Plenty of PE seats on the SIN to MUC leg, and plenty of economy seats on the MUC to AMS leg. In fact booking it from scratch would cost LESS than my original ticket.

4) I contacted a Navan agent and they mentioned that the change fee would 290 SGD (around 220 USD), ok no issue. However, I would need to pay another 500 USD for the fare difference which was shocking to me. I hung up on that agent, called another, and yet another and yet another and got the same response. Finally one agent told me “apologies, but for the MUC to AMS leg given that you upgraded to business class, I am only allowed to sell you business class for that same leg if you move your flight to an earlier date”. This was shocking because business class was an upgrade and my fare was actually PE (from SIN to MUC) and Y-economy from MUC to AMS.

5) Finally the agent told me that I would need to get rid of the upgrades and revert back to economy in order for Navan to change the date and give me the correct fare (PE from SIN to MUC) and Economy from MUC to AMS.

6) So I called Lufthansa. The agent told me that unfortunately they couldn’t help me un-change my upgrade since they didn’t know how or put me back in economy. In fact I called two of them. They were quite rude.. Then the third person referred me to talk to their “Miles and Smiles” (LH’s mileage program) to help me take away the upgrade.. I knew that was pointless. I called anyway and got the answer I expected. “No”. They suggested to then call United to see if they can help. But on United’s website it wrote regarding changes with Star Alliance (or PlusPoint) upgrades with other carriers (ie: ANA, Lufthansa, Copa etc) that the changes needed to be done “with the OPERATING CARRIER” only.. in any case I called United.

7). I called MilesagePlus and they couldn’t help me so connected me to an actual agent, who told me stuff like this can be reversed with their 1K web support team. So I called the 1K web support team and they so far are trying to be helpful. What the agent on the 1K web support team told me they were going to call Lufthansa and connect me to them so to do this together. Gotta love this. The United lady got in touch with Lufthansa, only to get hung up on. So she said she would try again but connect to a supervisor at Lufthansa. And here I am, typing on this site and waiting for an answer.

But word to the wise. If you book a flight using an agent, AND try to upgrade that flight with a Star Alliance upgrade with United points, and get upgraded (yay!), but need to change the date of your flight, be aware that
1) There will be a hefty fare difference because the agent will be forced to put you in the higher class of service for the part of the flight that is upgraded. I know this is strange since you’d expect the original fare class right? At least for LH that’s not the case. 2) No one will be able to help you. Lufthansa knows squat about how to “un”-upgrade your flight even though it says on United’s website: “If you wish to make changes or cancel your Star Alliance Upgrade Award request, please contact the operating carrier”.

All in all, trying to change a flight will be costly if you use a Star Alliance upgrade and not book the flight directly with the carrier and use an agent. Let me know what your thoughts are! And yes, you’ll get some rude reply from Lufthansa, and sadly United will try to help you but its limited.
And, just to close this out, United couldn’t help me. The supervisor of the 1K web desk said “I need to contact the operating carrier.” It’s like going through a circular loop. Ridiculous.

In February, I flew to Bangkok and booked Premium Economy flights for both legs of the Houston-Narita leg of 14 hours. After I booked and was receipted, I then upgraded to business for that same long flight using 30,000 miles and $450 per ticket. That was separately receipted. I think i found those upgradeable Premium economy flights using the MUA but can’t remember.

Today, however, when I try to use the MUA to find upgradeable flights back to SE Asia (TPE, HK or Seoul), I find I would have to pay the upgrade fee when I book and it would not be acceptable to submit a receipt for reimbursement that has an upgrade fee added to it.

I am not sure what to do. Would talking to a United booking agent allow me to book an upgradeable premium economy flight without paying the upgrade fees up front? Or, should i just go ahead and book a premium economy flight with the hope that it will have a reasonable upgrade cost. Upgradeable premium economy tickets using the MUA seem to be cheaper than just booking premium economy tickets.

Any suggestions?

Hi Christine, I purchased an economy premium ticket on the United website for a direct flight operated by United GRU-ORD. Can I request a cabin upgrade using TAP miles and go points? Which codeshare should I look for to check the possibility? If available, should I call TAP to request the upgrade? I called once but the TAP attendant informed me that it would only be possible if I had bought the tickets through the TAP website. I found the answer strange.

I have a couple international flights that I was a bit careful and purchased Econ Plus – however I now can afford to upgrade to Bus – BUT I cant – when I went in to “Upgrade” all the internal flights allowed points or miles upgrade but the INT sections said “No Upgrade available” – however there were plenty of seats available. I am on the wait list – so that is probably the reason, but there seems to be no way to actually pay for the upgrade – I wanted to do that to boost my PQP. A second question is when you do upgrade with MONEY – does United add this to your PQP? I really have not see this happen .