As the United website moves forward (or at least changes; I’m not convinced it is necessarily moving forward) so must some of the many tools I’ve built to help travelers get the most out of their United experience. The first completed step in that process is an update to the add-on which aids in finding fares eligible for Global Premier Upgrades (GPUs) on long-haul trips.
The gist of it is relatively simple: Only certain fare buckets are eligible for such upgrades and remembering the list is annoying. So is typing it in. The old version had the list always in the box and users would just click on a radio button to activate the function. The new version of the site operates a bit differently and therefore the add-in does, too. Just below the text box for Fare Buckets on the new Advanced Search page is an icon and a text link. Click on them and the text box gets filled with the correct text to search for GPU-eligible fares. Just like before it will put in different text depending on whether you are searching for an upgrade from economy to business or from business to first.
The search results are also slightly different, and in a good way, I think. The new grid layout has plenty of things I like and plenty I hate but in this case it is mostly something I like. You will now see the cheapest economy fare, the requested fare and the cheapest business class fare for your requested itinerary.
In this particular case I can see that playing the “W fare lottery” is a relatively inexpensive game. That won’t always be the case, obviously, but it is here.
The code should work for all the regional language options of the new United site and still supports the legacy version of the site for folks who, like me, are not too keen on switching to the new version quite yet.
Get the script from the Chrome Store or from this direct download link.
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