I am not buying these rationales. It did not used to be this way. Since 2000, I have made over 10 business seat reservations using awards and upgrades on United and Delta, most all going overseas to popular destinations, and rarely with more than one or two stops. Sometimes I found them 10 months out, many times a few months out. I never had major problems finding saver seats or getting upgrades, and never was the award or upgrade fee over $100, although most of the upgrade seats were several hundred dollars more for an upgradable seat, but not $1,100 more.

Now, from what I’m seeing and hearing, the corporate model of greed and manipulating the customer has affected United. I am sorry, but when United is going to charge me $1,100 in addition to the economy seat price just to use 40k miles, that is completely different than the past. I understand it is a better deal than buying a business seat at $6,000, but if they are going to offer “saver” seats with lower miles, then they need to be reasonably available at 10 months out.

I just saw a United ad on TV a few weeks ago bragging about how their miles program was rated, I’m paraphrasing, something like “most available awards seats than any other program.”

Again, the corporate model of manipulating the customer into thinking this availability exists even though they don’t tell you that they are mostly standard awards seats, if that, which required double the miles.