dank0014

Maybe it isn't to you, but to me, absolutely is worth the effort. It provides me the opportunity to gate pass, and here are some things I have used it for before:

-Taking my niece to see the planes, she loves that experience and it is great to be able to share that with her
-Taking my mother through the airport. She very much dislikes the airport experience and easily gets lost in airports. By me taking her directly to the gate, it relieves her stress tremendously while traveling
-Picking friends/family up at the airport. The smile and happiness on their face when they walk off the jet bridge
-Meeting colleagues while they have layovers for in person meetings (have done this a lot)

Through the majority of the above, I never really step foot in the club.

Maybe I'm the weird one, but I purchased UA Club membership for a key purpose being that it gave me access to the club when I needed it outside of just flying. By taking away this key benefit to me, it dilutes the value of the membership and I probably won't need it as much.

When I'm traveling for business, I expense everything, so the little bits of food in the lounge don't do much for me, and many airports offer free wifi now and chairs are starting to become more comfy in the seating areas as is. Given this, the value of the actual use of the club while traveling isn't the most important piece. The only time it has helped me was during IRROPS; however, majority of the time, I can get issues taken care of quicker via the app or calling UA rather than seeing an agent live, and truthfully, the agents in the club have been dis-empowered to actually fix problems IMO.

If this eliminates the gate pass option, my only other choice will be to cancel the club membership and just go to the purchase/same day cancel, and as I said above, that will actually result in costs to UA for when I have to call an agent to cancel it and them having to credit everything back....my two cents. Maybe they figure the labor costs equal out by me not having to see an agent to get a gate pass....but why piss off your fliers when there is no net gain here IMO?? Simply a lose-lose situation for UA, but I guess that is UA typical.