Starman

I'm not apologizing for UA in any way. I loved pmUA, hate COdbaUA. But I would point out that restricting redemption of free awards is a fundamental part of most FF programs, including M+ of course. Restricted redemption is disclosed in the fine print, but still surprises most Kettles, who can't understand why they can't get the nonstop transcon on Friday night for free. In this respect, how is restricting redemption of instrument supported upgrades any different? It's disclosed in the fine print. So I'm not sure I'd call it dishonest. It may well be STUPID, if it drives away more business than it attracts. Yet here we all are, the UA HVFs, moaning on FT, but, we're still here, so presumably most of us are still flying UA after the moans. Maybe they're not even stupid....

I'm beginning to believe limiting R redemptions is the primary purpose of making R bucket availability awkward to see.

Although, I have to say this morning I booked SJC-LAS-ELP on WN, whom I haven't flown in years, partly due to this aggravation over seeing R buckets. Normally to make this trip I'd drive from Silicon Valley to SFO (much longer drive, expensive parking, chaos at the airport, far more WXs than SJC), fly 500 miles out of the way to DEN rather than LAS, endure two CRJ flights to/from ELP, etc., and probably still not score an upgrade on SFO-DEN, even with an instrument, much less CPU.

Instead I booked WN, spent $120 less, will be 1.5 hours quicker east, 2.5 hours quicker west, avoid the CRJs, still get free bags. And for $25 more I bought "early bird checkin" which puts me in their equivalent of group 1, even though I have no status. Sure, there's no E+, but I'm on two 1+ hour flights each way, and avoid two CRJs on the trip. Hmmm, this could easily become a habit.