Originally Posted by
fjfv19
Maybe? I guess the bad part is more competition for E+ seats because a Silver shouldn't be expecting upgrades anyway. In my mind, the only benefits that would affect other silvers is access to E+ (more competition at T-24) and a few more people in the Premier Access line which affects all elites. The other benefits of silver like checked baggage and whatnot doesn't really impact my travel experience. In addition, I'd speculate that high level elites in hotel programs likely have reasonable status on some airline, so may be significant overlap.
We'll see what happens.
Bolding mine - that seems right. Someone who stays 50 nights at Marriott probably does a fair amount of airline travel. If they don't, then status doesn't really matter and the impact will be limited. If they do, and they regularly travel United, then they probably have silver status anyway. And if they regularly travel another airline, then the impact will also be limited.
In other words, it seems unlikely that there's someone who currently travels a lot on another airline, stays in the Marriott, and as a result of getting Silver on United will switch significant travel to United and thus meaningfully use the new silver status acquired.