The PPS program is now almost completely useless, especially in Y. I ditched the program when it changed from Assured to Secure (Assured was a steal and had to go), but this is really offensive. One of the great features of the PPS program was last-seat availability for a fixed price; now, you pay what is essentially the published M fare when cheaper seats are available, but when no M seats are available, you have to pay the higher B or Y fares. It is really heads you lose, tails you lose-- you are almost always paying more than another available published fare in the market, and you don't get last-seat availability at a fixed price, which was the real asset of the PPS program.

UA wants to have its cake and eat it too-- they want you to pay a higher fare at a contracted rate when lower fares are available (most of the time M is available, lower-class inventory is also available, and most of these PPS sample fares are higher than the walk-up fares in H and below), but when lower fares aren't available (M is rarely the lowest open bucket on domestic flight), they want you to pay more than your contracted rate. There is no "Secure" about it since you never know when UA will or will not publish M. In the past, "PassPlus Secure and Assured" assured you the security of a seat on any flight with space for a contracted rate; this new plan seems to offer UA more security than the customer and assures that the customer is going to pay a fare UA likes on every flight. UA assumes no risk of any loss with PPS purchases in Y now, because they can always zero out M. There is no give and take in this new scheme, only take.