United Upgrades Can Now Be Used On ANA

I suppose it's a good development for 1Ks but will reduce award space for premium cabins out of United hubs, e.g. Houston or Chicago.

Useless to me. I don't throw away money on high fare classes.

As a fan of the hobby, it's not fantastic, but these improvements are not directed toward leisure travelers. There's little incentive to reward people for booking restrictive classes. They are for business travelers who anyway purchase refundable/flexible tickets anyway. As a business traveler, I'm happy about that, even though I'll likely never use this. Always helpful to remember that most changes like this are not to make the average flyer (or even the above-average flyer who follows OMAAT) happier

As a 1K, I probably would not use this -- but nice to have the option. If I'm traveling for work so I have a high-revenue fare in business class, it probably makes more sense to try to upgrade with miles. GPUs are worth more than a mileage upgrade because you can use them to upgrade to business from relatively cheap economy fares on Unuted. That said, nice to have the option if I'm getting toward the end of the year and haven't been able to use my GPUs yet. Could see using them in that scenario.

A question about the Y upgrades: it says that there has to be I class space (award business), but are you sure that Y upgrades to business and not premium economy? Of course would be great if they upgrade to business, but usually airlines are always trying to give the short end of the stick...
This question also applies to LH upgrades, I guess...

On the UA webpage for using ditital GPU's to upgrade on LH flights, ANA has also appeared as an option. i noticed this over the weekend while trying my first application for LH

Honestly I would rather have no fare restrictions and only be able to use upgrades on United than have partner options which require buying extremely expensive economy fares. No use to me on leisure trips and for business trips, while I could use them for upgrades to first class, I'd rather save them for economy to business upgrades for vacations.
I suppose there are tradeoffs with everything - I'm sure United would offer fewer GPU's than even American if they removed fare class restrictions and upgrades would undoubtedly be FAR harder to get but it can be frustrating to get these "benefits" that are so difficult to take advantage of.

This is pretty much useless due to the high fare class restriction.
No one in the right mind would buy a Y or B class ticket just to use a GPU.

This is quite useful to me. With the stupid businessfirst and no first, I rarely even have the chance to use my GPUs on UA, so any opportunity to use them on other carriers is welcome. Now ANA just needs an F cabin from HND-LAX and I will be set.

Option of VERY last resort to travel upfront when all else fails. It it is too restrictive, too expensive, and it might be better to just purchase a premium ticket to travel upfront, rather than to purchase one of these expensive tickets and then upgrade it with A GPU...

I wouldn't commend United just yet - I understand these are more expensive fare classes on ANA. And in theory GPUs should be applicable for all Star Alliance airlines, esp. the big ones like Asiana, Thai, EVA etc.

Lucky, what are you talking about?? There is no I or O booking class at ANA. Please check below and clarify asap...

https://www.ana.co.jp/wws/japan/e/asw_common/amc/reference/tameru/flightmile/int/index.html

@ Ake Bono -- The page you linked to shows booking classes that accrue miles. Award tickets, by nature, come from different buckets, and of you don't earn miles when you're redeeming them.

United GPUs are useless on ANA, they really don't offer upgrade seats. The key phrase is "you can’t waitlist these upgrades". So my last flight there were plenty of business class seats open, and I had GPUs available, but ANA would not honor them.

@Clare: You are 100% correct. These upgrades are theoretical and nearly impossible to get. I tried to upgrade for a flight that showed 23 (!) free seats in business class but somehow NONE were available for upgrades. I called ANA and they very candidly told me that it is "very rare" that they process one of these United upgrades. Just another case of corporate lying BS!!

I would love to hear from someone who actually managed to get one...

It was useless. I had a paid Business Class fare on ANA to Haneda, and United wanted me to pay an additional $ 4000, JUST TO BE WAITLISTED using a GPU. Can you imagine ? You spend the $4000, and then ANA says, Sorry no upgrades were available for United fliers.

I declined.