MileagePlus upgrade on United for international flight segment booked on Y class when there are domestic segments that have class V

Question

My wife and I both have MileagePlus Premier Silver status. We are flying on an United ticket on Air India (T class) domestically in India, and then from Delhi to EWR on a Y class ticket on United, and domestically in the US on a V class ticket.

My question is: to determine upgrade eligibility for the international segment using miles upgrade, are we going to be given priority per the booked class for that segment (Y, which is higher) or V (which is substantially lower down).

Here is what the DEL-EWR segment says.

Answer 1

United upgrade pecking order is complicated.

to determine upgrade eligibility for the international segment using miles upgrade, are we going to be given priority per the booked class for that segment (Y, which is higher) or V (which is substantially lower down).

It's Y since that's the fare class of that segment.

However since "Y" is an economy fare, any upgrades from Premium Plus (O, A & R fares) are upgraded first.

My wife and I both have MileagePlus Premier Silver status.

Unfortunately, that's a problem. Status trumps fare class, so any Global Services, 1k, Platinum & Gold members will be upgraded before you. You will be (by far) the leading candidate for Premier Silver passengers but that only will help if the upgrades work their way all the way down through Premier Plus and status.

I may be wrong here: A "Y" ticket is somewhat unusual. They are rarely purchased directly since they are typically way more expensive than normal business class tickets (P, Z and sometimes even D). So it depends a bit on how you actually ended up with "Y" ticket.

Answer 2

The upgrade priority for each leg will depend on the fare class of that leg. So with the fare classes you've described, the upgrade priority of the DEL-EWR leg will be based on the "Y" fare class.

However, are you sure that you actually have a 'Y' fare class for this leg. 'Y' is often used to designate two different things - it is indeed a fare class, and in fact is the most expensive fare class for economy tickets. It is unusual for fares to actually be purchased in 'Y' fare class, and would generally only occur if the aircraft was already full and was being places into an overbook situation.

'Y' is often also used as a general designation for the economy class cabin - regardless of the actual fare class of the ticket. If this is the case, there would still be a fare class for that leg, and it would likely be lower then 'Y'.