United non-rev to australia....Chances? Weight restrictions? HELP please

I am a registered companion non-rev traveler for United. I am trying to make it from Newark to Melbourne to visit family, and would also like to see Sydney for a few days while I'm there. My plan is to travel to MEL through LAX, and then get a cheap flight from an Australian company to go from MEL to SYD, then travel back to EWR from SYD either through LAX or SFO.

My main concern is getting to MEL. Worst case scenario, I don't mind flying to SYD first and then to MEL, but I'm concerned about weight restriction. I am planning on going this Thursday (5 days from now) and looking at the flight, there are 2 seats open in business and about 10 in economy on the LAX to MEL segment. I'm the only person listed on standby, so I'm feeling pretty good about getting on the flight, but I'm concerned about weight restrictions. Can any united pilot chime in about how likely it would be for the flight to be weight restricted? And if it happens, it is something that means that need just a few seats empty, or would they need to leave like 30 open seats?

I know that this varies based on weather and how much cargo the plane is carrying, but I was just wondering if anyone had any experience of how often this happens and more or less how many seats they need to leave empty to accommodate for weight. Thanks in advance!

Oh, one more thing! I saw from a few years ago that people were saying you could do MEL to SYD or SYD to MEL on United even though the flight isn't listed in employeeRES. Anyone know if they still allow this?

Thanks!

If a flight is really expected to be weight restricted, it will probably by accounted for under the held seats. But that doesn't always happen, either. Sometimes you just have to wait and see. Or weight and see, if you want to be punny about it. But yes, usually this stuff is figured out at the end. With all that said, I don't think it's quite as big of a problem as it once was back in the day. The 787 especially has a good range, and there are far longer flights on it that go just fine.

As for MEL-SYD, that doesn't exist anymore. We used to fly LAX-SYD-MEL, I think it was (maybe SFO?), but once we added a LAX-MEL nonstop, the SYD-MEL thru flight went away.

For this thursday there are a dozen seats to MEL. There are more open seats to SYD. I would think being so close either flight should be good.
The hard part is deciding when to fly to LAX or SFO. The early flights look GREAT but leaves you with a 10+ hour layover. The later flights out of EWR look OK/IFFY but how much of a chance do you want to take?

Thanks! I realized after that once they added the LAX-MEL leg, they took away the SYD-MEL.

I am planning on taking the first flight out to LAX! I've never been to LA before, and I took the whole day off of work anyway. I figure that this way I will be so tired that I'll sleep on the 6 hour flight to LA, get to leave the airport and spend the day to see the city, and come back at night for the flight to MEL. It will also be nice to have a lot of time between the two flights, as I think I'm gonna go crazy on the 17 hour flight to MEL. I'm also sad cause there are 4 seats open in business but 18 eligible upgrades!! I thought that those kind of numbers only happened on domestic flights :(

I guess I jinxed myself. When I showed up to the gate, the MEL agent told me that the SYD flight had already been weight restricted but there was plenty of extra seats on the MEL flight and they didn't have much in the cargo. I happily get my seat, get on the plane, change into my pijamas and make myself comfortable for the 15h flight. We are waiting and waiting, and after about 15 minutes the gate agent comes back on and tells the stanbys that we all have to get off because they weight restricted the flight due to the rain (it had been raining for hours so I dont understand why they did this after the fact. I was devastated, it was 11 pm, and I had no place to stay in LA for the night.

Luckily I decided not to give up and I ran over to the SYD gate, which hadn't departed yet. A family on the MEL flight that had higher priority was already talking to the gate agent there, and I over heard the agent telling them that there was one available seat. The family decided not to split up, and I got the seat. I felt like I was in some weird nightmare turned into a miracle happy ever after. It was crazy.

Now Im trying to get back to the states tomorrow going to Boston for xmas with the family. Both the SFO and LAX flights out of SYD are overbooked by 10+ in economy, but the LAX flight has 15 open in business. Does anyone know how the airlines handle this situation, given that there is no one on the upgrade list? Do they just chose random economy customers to upgrade to business?

made it on business for the SYD-LAX leg! It was a xmas miracle! Then for LAX-BOS I was in a middle economy between two overweight guys....but I guess I cant complain. Merry xmas!