Originally Posted by
billxmeredith
I'm curious why so many people take the phrase lifetime to mean till death do you part. Lifetime is how long the benefit lasts. It no longet lasts. It is done. Finished.
In all likelihood, that's not completely true. "Lifetime" does have legal meaning and interpretations, even though most of the case law you'd find relates to employment contracts or contracts for services (health clubs, for example).
But that's not the real problem here. The beef with UA is over a promised lifetime benefit (the CR1's) being replaced with an alternative lifetime benefit (the companion Gold). Any reductions in benefits to Premier Gold status from those of pmUA 1P would have to be specific to only the MMers to be germane. Since the Gold still delivers the *G status, debate as to whether 1P "should" map to Gold or Platinum is mostly specious.
By a couple different paths, the value of a year of Premier Gold can be placed at more than $1000. It's hard to see how, in general, there would be much harm arising from that substitution, especially now since the eligible companion definition has been expanded.
That's why I keep repeating my opinion that the real harm here is to UA's goodwill: poster after poster has stated they don't trust the management. When the changes to the companion definitions appeared (first reported here by
Fredd), I thought: this has attorney authorship written all over it. That would be about as stupid a thing as would be possible: defend yourself against legal challenge by enhancing the value of the companion Gold benefit, when the smart thing to do would be just give 'em a choice of the damned certificates and put the issue to bed.
It defies understanding.