Fortunately for me, all of my international C crews checked my water glass so often it was essentially always full, but having your own is nice, as AS hands em out at departure in F for afternoon/evening flights (it's OJ in the morning).
As for saving money by getting rid of the toiletrees, if shedding a bleedin
olive saves you umptold millions a year, I imagine getting rid of the toiletrees is the reason UA lost half as much in 2004 as they did in 2003.
I guess UA feels like we do - no matter what they do for service or products, when it comes to "hard dollars", we're all going to fly SQ or LH for the girls or the seats, anyway.
So they're catering to the "cheapest upgradeable fare" folks on international just like they cater to the "cheapest fare" folks domestically.
