where do I begin....I can relate to what OP is talking about. I too long for the Bethune days. I've flown over a 1MM actual miles with Continental. $mi$ek as I call him doesn't care about the end customer. I've seen him give interviews, where he says that they will be passing on increases in fuel costs and increases due to regulation down to the customer.

UMP, (United Mileage Plus) is a downgrade from OnePass. Your miles expire after 1 year, so much for saving miles to take that 1st class trip to Europe folks. UMP also rewards their FF's differently. There is no equivalent status for OnePass Platinum Members, you have to fly 100K miles to get equivalent status now (Presidential Platinum = 1K). If you aren't flying internationally, that translates into flying at least 2500 miles or more weekly.

United also isn't all that generous with their upgrades, I merged both my FF accounts and I'm getting more upgrades with CO than with UA, and I'm flying both with full fare tix. CO automatically upgrades me because of my Presidential + status. The UA staff as well as planes and FF program are well...dated and stodgy.