Ultimately, you are responsible for your financial decisions. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. We strive to provide up-to-date information, but make no warranties regarding the accuracy of our information. Members requesting a MileagePlus Upgrade Award to a Premium Plus seat only will not be waitlisted for United First on portions of their itinerary that do not contain Premium Plus. United offers a number of different options for upgrading your flights to a more comfortable seat. It’s also worth noting that upgrade inventory is different than regular award inventory; if you wanted to use miles for this flight, there’s only a single seat available (I1 in the blue box). However, the sooner you request your upgrade, the more your chances are of getting it. Upgrade your seat on Star Alliance member airline flilghts. United uses three different fare classes to denote upgrade inventory, as follows: Armed with this information, turn to United’s Expert Mode. Upgrades are not impossible, however, and when it comes to United Airlines passengers, there are a number of different ways to land a better seat. Many flyers stick with an airline not because they want miles, but because they hope they can upgrade to a flatbed to Europe or Asia for free, saving thousands of dollars per trip. 6 Surprisingly Simple Moves To Boost Your Credit, 5 Must-Have Apps That Will Completely Change How We Invest, How to get a United upgrade with miles during the booking process, How to get a United upgrade with miles after booking, How United credit cards can help you earn upgrades faster, Your Premier status at the time of the request. In addition, RPUs can be used to sponsor another member, meaning you can gift your upgrade to a friend or family member, even if you aren’t traveling with them. Upon qualifying for United Premier Platinum status, members will receive two Regional Premier Upgrades (RPUs) and another two are awarded after qualifying for Premier 1K status — a notable drop in quantity that took effect as of Jan. 1, 2019. If you’re traveling on United’s 11-hour flight from Newark (EWR) to Honolulu (HNL) or departing from any of the carrier’s other hubs, you’d need to either redeem miles or apply an upgrade certificate (discussed below). In fact, the number of ways to earn miles with the United MileagePlus program is almost overwhelming, but the following is a simplified list to get you moving in the right direction. If you paid the full fare on your original reservation, there is no extra cost when using your miles other than taxes. Upgrade Using United Miles If you've decided you want to upgrade The good news is that for both of these carriers, upgrade inventory is the same as award inventory, so you can upgrade to first class if there are any O seats available, and business class if there are any I seats available (assuming you booked an upgrade-eligible fare class). Request an upgrade online through your MileagePlus account. However, if you plan to upgrade from economy t… United’s award chart splits South America into northern and southern regions. The $95 annual fee is waived for the first year. To see the rate that applies to you, visit the page with the interactive award chart and enter your origin and destination. Editorial Note: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. As an example, take a look at the following flight from Chicago-O’Hare (ORD) to Shanghai for tomorrow: Note that PN6 means that there are six Polaris seats available for Global Services travelers, while PZ4 indicates that there are four seats available for mileage and certificate upgrades (this flight doesn’t have a Premium Plus cabin). For this flight, United wants either $104 cash or 20,000 miles for an upgrade. This could actually represent a good deal, depending on how much the underlying S … Then determine whether you truly want to upgrade or save those miles for a free flight. Because I had already booked the coach tickets for 30,000 miles a piece, we needed an additional 30,000 miles per ticket (90,000 United Airlines miles total) to waitlist for the Business Class seats. But on a flight from Los Angeles to Berlin, upgrades from economy to business class cost as much as 20,000 miles and a $550 co-pay each way on a discounted fare. United Airlines offers four different types of upgrades: MileagePlus Upgrade Awards, which you can earn using miles on United or Star Alliance flights, are available to all United members, regardless of whether you have a special status with the airline. As noted above, select elite members are eligible for instant upgrades when booked into the highest fare classes, as long as there’s upgrade inventory available. Simply pull up your reservation and submit your request through that page. If the first available seat is a Premium Plus seat, United will continue to look for space in the Polaris business-class cabin. If you’re looking to get a better flight experience, it’s important to set the right expectations. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Although there are lots of opportunities to optimize Turkish Airlines miles, we’ll first go over some of the pros and cons before deep-diving into all the sweet spots. 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