Originally Posted by
UA-NYC
Nothing wrong with it, as long as you give up believing in the cornerstone elite benefit of the complimentary upgrade system.
And United has not done this "for some time". Inside T-24, those would have been upgrade seats on PMUA.
In actuality the only thing that's changed is that upfares no longer require a change fee. In the past, if I wanted to upfare from a K to an HUAUP, I'd have to pay the difference and the change fee. Now it's just the fare difference.
This option had ALWAYS existed, now it's being more broadly marketed and has better visibility. That's what's changed. Complimentary upgrades always took lower priority compared to these upgrades for cash, even in the PMUA world, even in the e500 world.