Quick question... I am a lowly Elite Silver on United, so I can't reserve E+ for free until check it. Economy is full and decent E+ seats are starting to fill up quickly. However, there are a LOT of first class seats available currently, so my upgrade chances at this point look decent. But, it's an ORD-IAH flight, so who knows. My question is, if I fork out the dough to ensure a good E+ seat, but get upgraded to 1st, do I get refunded the $ I paid for the E+ seat?

Thanks in advance

It's not that long of a flight. Make a decision and stick with it.

Gee, thanks. A simple "I don't know" or, better yet, nothing at all would have sufficed.

I doubt that you would get a refund on the economy plus seat if you managed to get an upgrade to first, but I don't have experience with this specific situation.

I went ahead and called to find out, and they told me that it would be refunded.

interesting... let us know what you decide and how it goes.

Seatmaps are never a good indication of how many unbooked F seats there are, but if there are indeed a lot of open ones, then you can expect all the 1K, Plat and Gold elites to be upgraded into those seats, and thereby <b>freeing up</b> the E+ seats for you to pick during online check-in.

Therefore, it's NOT worth paying to get E+ at all, unless you have no chance to do OLCI and switch seats for whatever reason.

Those E+ seats are filling up quickly by pax with elite status higher than yours.

Not worth paying for the E+ in this instance unless there is some reason you really need it, or you don't want a middle seat.

The UA FF changes are a reason many of us are flying other airlines now.