Sorry I disagree. Offering someone a $79 upsell (again assuming all Elites have been accommodated) frees up a seat in coach which allows you to accommodate another passenger on the plane. The alternative was either upgrade someone for free, or have the First seat go empty and spill the revenue. Trust me, the airline is not going to let a seat go empty if it has the opportunity to sell it.

Despite your cynicism, airlines are rational beings. They know that once the door closes, any potential revenue is lost forever. So maximize the flight load, upgrade passengers when it makes sense, and fill every seat. They have to make literally tens of thousands of choices for every flight and every fare class from the day the booking window opens until the door shuts. This is not an exact science, but they're pretty close to getting things right. Despite what we all want out of United and what we call loyalty for our years of contribution, I also want them to stay in business. Going under would be the worst thing they could do.

The level of condescending remarks on their ability to make decisions that are both good for the company, their employees, and customers is rather shocking. I've been lucky and I've seen how it works on the other side, and while many here belittle their decisions (or lack of decision in E+ for example) every decision they make has profound implications for the enterprise. So let's give them some time to sort this stuff out. Everyone here is reacting with their gut. But what we really need to evaluate is what things looks like in a year because things are likely to look vastly different.

You can't complain about a cut in the accumulations of CR-1's and then in the next sentence also complain you never can use them because the flights are more full. I think many of the elite fliers may see the opposite happen. Ability to redeem CR-1's and SWU may improve with the new scheme. The addition of CO metal and frequency in certain markets, the increase in widebody utilization to more markets too. Who knows, but things are very likely to change and once they do, I think then we can see where the chips fall.