A Guide to Upgrading With Money and Miles on United
United offers a simple way for you to upgrade to a premium cabin for minimal extra money and miles. On most United flights, as a booking option, passengers can choose to book regular economy and upgrade to business or first class with an extra surcharge and frequent traveler miles. As an extra option, for additional money and miles passengers can choose to get on the waitlist for an upgrade or, if possible, immediately get an upgrade to a premium cabin. This fare is sometimes called “United R Class.” Continue reading to learn how to take advantage of this bargain.
A Guide to United Upgrades with Money and Miles
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How to book economy with a possible upgrade:
First, fill out your departure dates and your origin and destination. Then, click on the “all search options” button at the bottom of “Book Travel” of the Home Page.
You will be taken to a page which has more booking options. Then, go to the “Fare Preferences” section, click on “Milage Plus Upgrade Awards”, and select “Buy Economy and upgrade.” Your page should now look something like this. I will first talk about long haul upgrades, then about short haul upgrades.
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Upgrading with a Green Upgrade:
In this random scenario, I am flying round trip from Los Angeles to Melbourne, Australia in June, 2019 for a week. It costs $1,663 roundtrip in economy and $6,151 in business. Business class is obviously overpriced, so you won’t be paying that fare. However, in the middle, it shows the regular economy price plus $600 plus 30,000 miles and a green up arrow one way. This means that you could upgrade one leg of the flight, but keep another in economy.The green up arrow shows that definitive upgrades for that price are available, meaning that you will automatically be booked in business class. If you select the middle fare on both flights, you will pay $,2863 + 60,000 miles for United Polaris Business Class roundtrip from Los Angeles to Melbourne – something that normally costs more than $6,000. The price in economy with that upgrade is about the price of what a premium economy ticket on that route would cost.
I consider this to be a pretty good deal because you are getting a fully flat seat on one of the world’s longest flights for more than 1/2 of the actual cost of it. While you do still have to pay miles for the flight, there are always ways of getting United miles into your account (I will discuss that later). Unfortunately, the green upgrades which automatically give you an upgrade are available mostly on select long haul flights many months in advance which have a history of not being completely full. Once you get closer to the departure date, while booking, the green upgrades tend to go away, while the yellow upgrades tend to come. -
Upgrading with a Yellow Upgrade:
Most flights on United have a yellow upgrade symbol, which means that you will be placed on the upgrade waitlist instead of being given an immediate upgrade. In this scenario, I will be traveling from Chicago O’Hare to London Heathrow for a week in February, as pictured below.
The first thing that you will notice is that it actually costs more in both economy and in business class than from LA to Melbourne. Why? Because Chicago to O’Hare is a much more premium route that is in higher demand than from LAX – MEL, and because the dates on this scenario are closer to today’s date than from my fist example. You see that in this example, the upgrade option from economy costs (approximately) the economy class ticket plus $425 and 20,000 one way. Let’s say that you want a flat bed to London on the night flight, but don’t need it on the way back. Then, you could select the regular economy price on the way back, and end up paying $2,870 + 20,000 miles for business class to London and economy on the way back. That price is a fraction of the full fare business class price. However, the upgrade symbol is yellow, meaning that you will be put on the upgrade waitlist, instead of being immediately booked in economy. If you do not get the upgrade, you will be given back the extra money and miles. Do not think that you will 100% be upgraded just because you do this. It highly depends on the day that you fly on and the route you are traveling on. Some routes, it is a close to 0% chance that you will get the upgrade (especially if you are traveling on a route with a high premium demand). Some routes however, you have a pretty good chance of getting the upgrade while placed on the waitlist with this option. So, while flying on this route and requesting an upgrade with money and miles, know that there is a good chance that you will be flying in economy, while there is still a pretty good chance that you will get the upgrade. -
Upgrading domestically with this strategy:
Another scenario: you are flying round trip from Washington Dulles to San Francisco (same dates as the example above). Economy costs $623 round trip, first costs around $1,500 round trip, and upgradable economy costs around $775 + 35,000 miles round trip (17.5k miles + $75 for the upgrade waitlist each way).
In theory, with the money you pay, this is a great deal. You pay just a bit more money that for economy with a few miles and you get first class on a transcontinental flight. However, there are two reasons why this is not an amazing deal for domestic flights. First, there is a very slim chance that you will get the upgrade. With sometimes 12 seats available on a transcontinental flight in first class, most of the seats will probably be already booked. Second, you pay a ton of miles. Almost as much as you would pay from ORD – LHR in addition to money for the upgrade! If you don’t have that many miles, definitely do not go for this upgrade. If you have a large stash of them, definitely think about this. Unfortunately, mileage prices for domestic flights for upgrades are this high on most flights. My suggestion for this upgrade: If you have miles available, go for it: it can’t harm you. If you don’t have miles that you are willing to spend, wait until the dates for the flight gets closer. If there are seats available in first class and you are willing to spend that amount of money, go for it. However, if not, stick to economy. -
A quick guide to miles on United:
Many of you may be able to get the extra money for the upgrade, but not the extra miles. How are you supposed to get the extra miles? First, you earn them just by flying on any United flight, although with one flight, you do not earn a large quantity of them. The second way to earn miles is by spending money with a United credit card on day to day purchases with one of United’s credit cards. On some of them, by spending a certain amount after just getting one of the credit cards, you earn a large bonus of miles (ex. United Club card – 50,000 miles). Third, you can also buy miles from United’s website, although they are generally overpriced. Fourth, you can also transfer miles that you earn from other credit cards (such as from AMEX), although I won’t get into that in this post.
Conclusion
On some routes, you can get business class for a fraction of the price of full fare business class confirmed while you book it on ultra-long haul flights. On other flights, using this strategy, upgrades almost never get confirmed. I got upgraded to United Polaris Business class using this strategy from Washington Dulles to Amsterdam. On the flight back, we could have upgraded, but opted to skip because for a day flight, we did not find it worth it to pay the extra money for the upgrade. Also, remember to book in advance, especially if you have a green upgrade available! The green upgrades, which automatically upgrade you, will go away. It is just a matter of time. To sum it all, to measure the use of this strategy, it all depends on the route and the date that you are flying on.
Have you, or will you take advantage of this strategy? Post about it in the comments section.
