With UA's successful campaign to drive away loyal pmUA customers and other HVFs, perhaps the paid membership has dropped dramatically, so they feel forced to make cutbacks. While the clubs got quite crowded after the merger, it seems like there are lots more newbies who maybe got a couple of free passes with their credit card and aren't directly contributing to revenue.
Meanwhile UA may feel that the various credit cards offer enough other benefits that they can get away with cuts in this area. Frankly the old Presidential Plus card always seemed absurdly underpriced to me in the old days (not so much now, of course!).