The number of seats available for sale includes oversells.

Flights are generally "authorized" for a certain number of seats to be sold, in each cabin--economy, Business and First Class.The number that is authorized is the number of seats in the cabin, plus any oversells.Obviously the number of authorized seats is the number of actual seats plus oversells.On your flight, there are 49 business class seats.The number of authorized seats appears to be 55.The number of authorized seats varies,day to day flight to flight, hour to hour.Most airlines do not oversell F/C.It can get nasty.Now, you ask, who authorizes flights?? Well, some schmuck who may or may not resemble a geek.But he/she looks at past data and makes a decision according to a complex formula and chooses the number of seats for overselling.Tomorrow, the flight might be "even" which means it is equal to the number of seats actually on the plane.

It was C4 yesterday, then C5, now C6, so availability increased.

As of this morning on ua.com there are only 3 seats showing open in Business. I'm not sure what site you guys are looking at, but is it the same?

Looks like there are 5 seats in first, so can I hope that some people will be moved from Business to First and I may still get a seat?

I'm now 48 hours from departure. Will it do me any good to call UA again?
Should I get to the airport extra early on Friday? Anything I can do to increase my chances?
At what point do they stop waiting to see those seats and give away the upgrades?

seatcounter.com and expertflyer.com are showing C5 currently.

There really isnt much more you can do.The final decision to convert the "for sale" seats to upgrade seats rests with the person who will maintain departure management control, or whatever United calls it.One person will monitor the flight beginning at some point in time, whether it be 24 hours or 12 hours prior to departure time.Now, keep in mind that at any given time there will be airline employees standing by for the flight.The agent in control of the flight knows how many, since it is proper protocol for an airline employee to advise the airline of their desire to be on the flight.So anyone, anywhere can be moved up for any reason.You probably wont know until it happens.

C5 with 3 unassigned seats (at ual dot com). F5. YES you can hope that pax in C will be upgraded to F.

Economy class is still wide open. The E+ seating diagram hasn't changed since Monday.

My experience (I'm 1K) is that UA won't move people from business to first just because there are empty seats in first. As I said before, the only way they will move people from business to first is if they have to open up space in business to avoid bumping people from oversold coach, but it doesn't look like that'll happen on this flight.

What you have to hope for is that there are enough no shows in business so that everyone ahead of you in the upgrade queue (and you have to assume that there are at least a few ahead of you in the queue) clears and you get in.

C9 now with 7 unassigned seats

Seriously, the suspense is killing me!
I love that you guys keep looking and checking for me.

Note to self: keep repeating mantra. "Business Class, Aisle Seat, all the way to Paris".

That makes sense, EricH. If C is oversold by 1 and they all show up then UA would move someone up to make room for that 1. But they wouldn't move someone up to make room for a Premier on the waitlist with miles to spend. There aren't any C/D-paid pax waitlisted for upgrade - all 5 F seats are available for upgrade.

Mrwunfl-can you actually see the waitlist?

Less than 24 hrs to go now. I see only 4 seats in business on united.com
Would it help me to check in online now?

The flight is NC2 now. That is two upgrade to business seats are available. Call United right away, if you ug has not already cleared.

I called this morning and they would not do anything. Said it would happen "automatically" or at the gate...
I am still waitlisted right now.

You asked about the waitlist. I was referring to the upgrade-from-business to first waitlist. I could see that there were 5 first class seats available. The number of available upgrade-from business to first seats was also 5. Logically, the fact that upgrade-to-first seats were/are available means nobody was on that waitlist.

mrw.....From what I gather, American is the only airline that maintains any "wiggle" or "manually inserted" opportunities for domestic upggrades.All others, completely automated, from the queue.

I just called United AGAIN.

Was on hold for almost 20 min while the agent checked the wait list.

I am confirmed!!!!!! YAY!

I am a VERY happy girl.

Thanks to all for the advice!

Have a wonderful trip!

BeachBoi, I suggested OP call if the "ug has not already cleared". It was not about wiggle room. If her online itin still showed waitlisted then that would be a problem. The ug should (and probably did) clear automatically, but I wouldn't assume that it did. I figured that if OP saw my post that she would skip looking at her itin online and just call. Apparently, she was calling anyway.