What a fun read through 91 pages...
The OPM thing, as others have said is a red herring.
I am sure there are people who fly on OPM who don't have caps and strict controls in place. I would imagine that group is a very small sample percentage of people overall who fly on OPM.
Where I work, we have little to no choice, with very tight controls on booking the lowest economy fare. We have strict deadlines on purchase by dates. The travel system we are required to use, will not allow us to book on our own cards to capture bonuses. We do have some small flexibility in that we can purchase a non stop fare even if a connection is available at a somewhat lower far -as even my company understands time is money. Even that however is capped at around 250 dollars, so I can't spend 1000 extra dollars on a non stop for example. We can NEVER book domestic tickets in any UP fare (P, HUP etc), even if that fare was cheaper than a standard economy fare. The system simply will not allow a fare that ends up with a seat in F domestically. No way around that.
For International, I am able (based on my position in the company) to book into C, but with severe restrictions of about a 400 dollar gap on lowest available fare across multiple carriers, so if AC is 400 cheaper than UA, I have to go on AC no matter the connection times, etc. If I want to stay and earn on UA, I can certainly fly in economy, but if C/D/J/P are more than a competitor, I can not stay on UA in Business - so they leave it up to me.
In addition to all that, we have deals in place with several carriers, so that the fare my company pays is typically 7-10% under the same fare / flight combo online on .com
My company does understand the benefits (albeit small) that we gain with status, such as irrops, bag fees etc, so they do allow us the small window of flexibility as stated above, but that is all they allow. It only makes sense.
It's the system I have to work with, and I'm not complaining, but just showing the facts to debunk that I can spend at will on OPM.
Why would any company allow employees to spend excessively on business travel expenses to justify personal benefits? That doesn't make a lot of fiscal sense in anyone's books - but it seems that is what UA is wagering on with this change, is the hope that some people who fly will attempt to spend more. It will backfire for them for people like me.
Even as a 1k, with the 11x bonus, this is a devaluation for sure.
What would be nice is a range of other bonuses or benefits that come with status to offset all the devaluations that they have hit us with. Something like 1k's on paid C/D/J/P could get to use GFL for example would be an awesome new benefit in my book!
I don't like the changes at all, and I'm not sure it will ultimately work for UA. It seems, as others have said, there are too many holes in the logic and too many risky gambles they are making on the customers habits and spending patterns.
Too bad they can't do better than simply copy the competition...
We all knew the programs are headed this way, but I myself did not see this with UA until they made a turnaround on service, and flight experience, and where performance was trending upwards instead of the downward spiral they are on.