American Airlines, Delta, and United each offer systemwide upgrades to high level elite members. The idea is that you can buy an inexpensive economy ticket to anywhere in the world and apply a systemwide upgrade so that you can fly in lie-flat business class luxury. This is one of my favorite features of high level airline elite status, but each of the big-three US airlines handle these upgrades differently. Here’s what you need to know…
Systemwide Upgrade Similarities
Systemwide upgrades from AA, Delta, and United have a lot in common:
- Earn systemwide upgrades only by attaining very high level elite status.
- Apply one systemwide upgrade per one-way itinerary, even if itinerary includes multiple legs.
- Can upgrade from economy to business class.
- Not all seats available for sale are available for upgrades.
- If upgrade isn’t available at the time of booking you may waitlist and your upgrade will apply automatically if/when the upgrade becomes available.
- Mileage is accrued based on fare class purchased rather than fare class flown.
Systemwide Upgrade Differences
| AA Systemwide Upgrades | Delta Global Upgrade Certificates | United PlusPoints | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elite status level | Platinum Pro status: Choose 1 Executive Platinum: Choose 2 or 4 |
Diamond status: Choose 2 or 4 | Premier 1K or GS status: Earn 4* |
| Other ways to earn systemwide upgrades | Choose upon earning 150K, 200K, 250K EQMs. Also earn w/ million miler program starting at 2 million miles. | N/A | Earn .5 for for each 25K PQMs earned after reaching Premier 1K.* |
| Upgrade Basic Economy? | Yes | No | No |
| Upgrade options from economy | Upgrade to business class or domestic First | Upgrade to Comfort+, First Class, Delta Premium Select, or Delta One | Upgrade to Premium Plus, United First, or Polaris Business |
| Upgrade options from business class | First class | N/A | First class (ANA or Lufthansa) |
| Upgrade companion on same flight? | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Upgrade friend flying separately? | Yes | No | Yes |
| Find upgrade space online? | Yes | No (must call) |
Yes (with trick) |
| Apply upgrade online? | No (must call) |
No (must call) |
Yes |
| Ability to skip the waitlist? | No | No | Yes (requires many more PlusPoints) |
| Upgrade Partner Operated Flights? | No | Yes: KLM, Air France, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Australia, Korean Air and Aeromexico | Yes, Copa, ANA, and Lufthansa. ANA & Lufthansa upgrade only 1 segment and only select fare classes. |
* United awards PlusPoints rather than upgrade certificates. For the purpose of this comparison chart, 80 PlusPoints = 1 systemwide upgrade certificate.
United is Unique
While AA and Delta provide systemwide upgrade certificates to high level elites, United instead offers “PlusPoints” which can be used for upgrades. Different numbers of PlusPoints are required for different types of upgrades.
Earning United PlusPoints
- Reach Platinum Status: Earn 40 PlusPoints
- Reach 1K Status or GS (Global Services): Earn 280 PlusPoints
- Each 25K PQMs earned after 1K or GS: Earn 40 PlusPoints
Along the way to earning 1K status, you’ll earn 40 PlusPoints at Platinum and then 280 more at 1K for a total of 320 PlusPoints. If we equate 1 systemwide upgrade to 80 PlusPoints, then we can say that 1K status gets you 4 systemwide upgrade certificates (even though the reality is much more flexible and complicated).
Redeeming United PlusPoints
Short Haul United Flights:
Long Haul United Flights:
The chart for redeeming United PlusPoints on long-haul flights is shown above. The closest comparison to AA and Delta’s systemwide upgrades is the option to go from discounted economy to business class for 80 PlusPoints.
Skip Waitlist: United also allows you to “skip the waitlist” by applying (many) more PlusPoints. This can be useful if you have more PlusPoints than you know what to do with and a particular upgrade is very important to you.
Greg’s Mini Review
This is a rare case where I think that United offers the best option. PlusPoints are much more flexible than upgrade certificates. With AA and Delta, it’s a waste to use these upgrades on domestic flights or on upgrades from economy to premium economy. With United, those lesser upgrades cost far fewer points. So you can upgrade whichever flights you want without feeling like you’re wasting your elite benefits. United is also the only one of the three that allows applying upgrades online.
Second best of the three, in my opinion, is AA. AA offers the ability to upgrade basic economy tickets, offers more opportunities to earn upgrades, makes it possible to find upgrades online, and lets you gift upgrades to friends even when not traveling with you.
Delta’s solution is better than AA’s for its support of upgrades on select partner flights. Also, if you were to look beyond systemwide upgrades to regional upgrades as well, Delta provides more than AA.
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[…] case you are not a free agent these days: Systemwide Upgrades Compared: AA, Delta, United. I have not been an elite flyer since 2012 I believe. I had a great Platinum run with Northwest […]
You said AA SWUs cannot be applied to BE fares. My AA account shows BE flights available for upgrade. Is this correct?
Thanks for this! I forgot that AA changed their policy just a few months ago and now allow upgrades on basic economy flights! I’ve updated the post accordingly.
One key point regarding “usability” that almost always gets overlooked is the question of: Are you looking to redeem these upgrades on flights you’re already committed to taking? Like say a business trip at peak travel times? Or are you looking to use these upgrade certs/points on flights where you have the day of week and time of day flexibility.
If it is the latter then in general you’ll always have better odds of securing a confirmed upgrade at booking which is really the big differentiator vs. sweating it out on the battlefield.
Having held all 3 top statuses at the same time, I can easily conclude UA is by far the best for international long haul upgrades – both in terms of ease of use as well as availability of booked in advance. Also with the new PP system, I can pay a premium of ~$150 to book into W and effectively have 8 international upgrades!
Eg. USA-Australia is many times wide open on UA. Otoh DL/AA? Impossible.
Worst part of DL’s GUC system is having to call in. It’s 2020, man!
Finally, with AA their LHR flights are predictably open but Asia? Again, impossible.
“United awards PlusPoints rather than upgrade certificates. For the purpose of this comparison chart, 80,000 PlusPoints = 1 systemwide upgrade certificate.”
I really hope you mean 80 PlusPoints = 1 systemwide.
Whoops! Fixed. Thanks
I am a United 1K and I prefer the PlusPoints system by far. I fly a lot of ultra-longhaul flights and PlusPoints have been far cheaper and easier to use compared to the old upgrade certificates. This is based on my experience on booking 5 ultra longhaul flights in the past 6 months for myself and family.
@ Greg — I completely disagree. Last I checked, United offers basically zero advance-confirmable space on flights longer than 2.5 hours, making their upgrades by far the worst. Also not mentioned is that Delta offers Diamond’s WAY more uogrades than either AA or UA. Granted, they are mostly regional upgrades, but AA offers none of these and as I note above, UA’s advance-confirmable space is a joke. If you include regional upgrades (which you kinda have to, since most people’s flights are mostly domestic) DL wins this race by a huge margin.
Thanks, good points. I don’t have anyway to compare confirmable space across the 3 so I based my comparison on the upgrade rules. As to Delta offering more upgrades if you count regional upgrades, that’s true. In this post I looked only at systemwide upgrades. I imagine that if I broadened the comparison to include both regional and systemwide that Delta would have looked better.
I do agree that, on paper, United looks the best, but they fail to deliver IMO. Maybe the upgrade space has become more plentiful since COVID. UA domestic F pricing has certainly softened, but that could come at the expense of “free” upgrades.