Agreed re: United PR's job being hard. Not agreed regarding "there are a lot of whiners on FT expecting that, for whatever reason, we deserve to know things before the general public does." If you read closelt, you will see that the idea of FTers finding out before the general public does not come from FTers' sense of "entitlement" but rather from United PR's own chosen language in his OP, saying that he wanted FTers to be "among the first to know." I think most of the FTers' point is: (1) if you're going to cut benefits, ugh, fine, but don't add insult to injury by calling it an improvment, and (2) if you're just going to make a general announcement of the devaluation, fine, but don't add insult to injury by calling it an advance announcement or saying that we are among "the first to know." After all UA elites have already been e-mailed, people reading flyertalk are not going to be among the first to know.

The fact that you can rob someone blind without his/her knowing doesn't change the fact that you are robbing him/her blind. I think it's safe to say that the majority of UA elites who are aware of this change, especially 1Ks, will be incensed by it.