I call BS. How much money does United lose when the seat goes empty and the slop that may or may not be catered in F gets thrown out the door?

United makes tons of money on Mileage Plus from the credit card, car rentals, hotels and the repeat loyal passengers who fill empty seats. They wouldnt have the program in place if they didnt make money. Now they are just getting greedy and assuming that the empty seats will be filled by high revenue customers who now go to just about any other airline which has a true premium product