I would love an upgrade, but I travel for work.. I am a scientist so by definition I am poor.. I can not afford the co-pay on intl mileage upgades and can not afford $150 for a buy up..

I work hard and travel a reasonable amount, so an upgrade is a nice suprise.. I used to get them when I was with AA.. Now on UA as a silver I am 0 for 25 segments.. (No idea how many were upgradeable.. I just took the number of segments from my UA account)

Upgrades are awesome.. But for $150 I can take my wife and daughter out to an awesome dinner downtown.. I know where my money is better spent..

For me the biggest issue is that upgrades are sold as a benefit to us silvers.. with buy ups it is an impossibility.. A one-off flyer who will not buy another UA ticket this year, for $150, can jump the queue ahead of customers who send 10's of thousands to UA.. I fly United due to work requirements, but on every survey to our travel department I have entered a comment that I see UA as very poor value, and while not far ahead I have advocated a move to AA for our laboratory (which employes 3,000 people... many of whom travel)