Originally Posted by vt2k

On the other side of the coin, UA might be trying to get us to use more Award Tickets to/from Hawaii. They might see this as an opportunity to start removing a huge liability off their balance sheet. Management's line of thinking might be "Wow, we have so many people that upgrade on these flights compared to those that pay for the product, why not use this as an opportunity to better our balance sheet by reducing the outstanding usable miles we have to account for each year?" Plus, for those that really want the upgrades, it could be worth it to pay those fees and the extra miles. UA benefits from having extra revenue being generated, which is good for the viability of the company.