I love United's "unlimited domestic upgrades!"

Try flying a UX flight and see if you are still that lucky or not 😛

23/23 this year... mostly on UX and I'm just as happy as you Lucky!

I'm 21 out of 28. Most if not all of my 7 fails have been either to or from SFO. I even failed to get UDU on a CRJ at the crack of dawn on Sunday....but it was to SFO. I suspect my issue was flying into SFO just before all the Asia flights or just after a lot of the Asia flights...so many of the seats would be filled with Passengers who were flying F or C to Asia....so fewer seats were available for UDU to start with....and if a A319, well forget it. In the future I'm just going to try and avoid connecting in SFO.

0 for 1...IAD-JFK on an E170, but it was Saturday afternoon on a V fare. I was not amused.

Just flew 3-class 767 ORD-DEN, and I was the only non-rev in F (on a Z fare). Flight went out full. Last glance at departure monitor noted "1 upgrade to clear / 1 seat left".

This implies:
- there were zero paid Business elites
- there were hardly any elites at all
- everyone got upgraded

Tough times for premium paid traffic.

All of my UA UDU's have cleared as well including flights between IAD and SFO. I really like it b/c I'm now upgraded on flights I would have never "wasted" an e500 on. My Continental EUA record is slightly worse where one redeye SFO-EWR did not clear, but everything else did including two other flights between SFO and EWR. I love UDU!

I am a Premier Exec. I have cleared all but one leg in about 4 trips to WAS/BWI/BNA.

I am very happy so far...

12/13 UDU eligible flights. Only missed on a CR7 ORD-DFW on the first day of UDU. Monday morning road warrior special. Only 13 flights in that timeframe makes me realize I fly too much UX. Ugh. Sadly, my only option from my home airport.

I've cleared every flight (25+) but a SFO-PHL Friday afternoon A320 on an L fare.

Life is indeed good as a 1K on UA.

As an aside, I've had to sweat some of them out, but I have a perfect upgrade as a CO Plat this year, including transcons and a Hawaiian flight.

I have only had 2 short hops SFO-LAX LAX-LAS on UDU and both of those cleared. The rest of my flights had already been upgraded with CR1s or A Fares. At this stage, I probably won't have need to experience UDU until next year, except for the occasional short hops.

My wife and I have yet to fail (25+) a UDU. And my folks (2P's) are also 3/3.

I too was skeptical, but I'm becoming convinced. They just need to fix the process to make it more transparent. I *still* don't know where CR-1's fall in the process, how the standby / upgrade list works (though I've cleared off of it). etc.

Not sure if this is good news or not, but as CO Gold flying SNA-DEN-LGA I was offered F in exchange for 15K miles and $50. I opted in, knowing it was not a great deal, but I had about 40K miles on UA and about 200K on CO, which will eventually merge, of course.

That, of course, took away a seat on each for UDU hopefuls.

By the way, I paid for a 1-day pass to the club in DEN. I was NOT impressed. The workstations had chairs with no back support and, worse yet, no power. I had to hunt around for a chair near a power outlet that worked. Then I found the coffee machine was broken. I can only hope the CO club management takes over RCCs.

I had my first UDU fail today (A319) with about 20 segments (incl lots of UX) since UDU started.

UDU has been a blessing for this 1K Lite. Before UDU I could never have amassed so many e-500 certs to cover the upgrades.

Upgraded 13/14 since inception, including 3 segments on A320 and 1 segment on A319.

The only failure was IAD-SEA, L-fare on a 752. It was 5:20PM departure. Perhaps those heavy-weight fliers arriving from Europe did me in.

This 1P has cleared on the short stuff (e.g., SFO-DEN, ORD-BDL) and been denied on the long stuff: PHL-LAX (Friday afternoon, S fare, A320) or IAD-SAN (Monday afternoon, K fare, A319) or SFO-EWR (Saturday morning, S fare, A320).

I'm not complaining (too loudly) though, since not clearing on transcons was kinda expected, and I still get to pre-reserve exit rows. Of course, if anyone wants to throw some UDU karma my way, I'd gladly accept...

Good for you Ben!

I made Alaska MVP Gold and have been upgraded every flight to Burbank and back over my last 6 sectors. Everyone has had good luck it seems!

I love it as well! Our flights to and fro SFO/KOA both cleared well in advance. And thanks to Ben's great advice I put our GM son on my 1P husband's PNR and they cleared at 72 hours. As a lowly 1P I only cleared at 48 hours, but it was awesome.

This 1K started out 1/3 clearing on a IAD-MIA & missing out on UX MIA-ORD & ORD-LGA.

Since then things have improved a bit, having surprisingly cleared on a 319 LAX-MCO redeye and a prime time LAX-SFO r/t and another SFO-RNO r/t.

Fwiw, those RNO flights were full in F and had NOBODY in E+.

I'm still a bit pessimistic about my future flights given my typical L fare trips but perhaps the lucks you folks have had will help me change my perspective.

The most difficult flight to upgrade is SFO-ORD during primetime where one can find some 1K in E- too!

Ben, some self-reporting on UDU outcomes -- broken down by elite class and hub-hub vs hub-nonhub -- is at http://www.udustats.com/

One nice feature: you can search any city pair to see the raw data submitted by other flyers on that route.

Have good luck on every routing except IAD-LAX and IAD-SFO. I have yet to get a UDU on those routes even as a 1K. I think the biggest determining factor is the booking class.

But you said previously that you cleared into F every flight that you wanted under the old system. Think of the non-1Ks and their success rate. On the old rules they had a chance using instruments now they stand at the gate and stare up at the upgrade list.

I'm 1P and have cleared 5/6 so far; awesome since I never ever fly in F otherwise. I really think 1Ps have done better under this system than people had originally anticipated. The only one that didn't clear was a SFO-BOS redeye (and even the 1Ks didn't clear on that one). I'm loving the UDUs - it's actually made me even more eager to work on staying a 1P or moving up to 1K this year, since I know I'd have another year of likely upgrades to look forward to (something that *would* probably get lost if I dropped to 2P).

I fly out of AUS so 90% of the time I fail to clear as a 1P b/c they're all UX. Cleared on a 319 actual United flight AUS-IAD, but I'm also traveling with my husband who's a 2P, and he won't let me upgrade if he doesn't get it either. Had to pass on my upgrade on UX from ORD-AUS on Monday night because it was the last seat. Hope that 2P behind me was happy.

Only missed one, DEN/COS (incredible) but in fairness this was after an irrops re-routed me from EWR/ORD/COS to EWR/DEN/COS (EWR/DEN cleared at the gate).

I'm amazed that you've cleared 3 tcons on an A319. What were the fare bases of those?

Now the program has completely tanked, thanks to the CO merger.

Thanks, Mr. Smisek. Thanks a lot.