Originally Posted by
channa
You paid for a membership, and they gave a year's notice. If you don't like it, don't renew.
Aside from lifetime members, this is ample notice for anyone to ride their existing membership out under the current policies, since this change doesn't kick in until August 2016.
Is it just me (and I can't believe I'm saying this), but I think UA is getting beaten up a bit too much over this.
They are, and I don't think it is because of this change at all really. It's just another indicator that culturally, United would rather piss off a bunch of customers over something that is really not that big of a deal for them to do. The idea that people with gates passes are flooding the clubs and causing overcrowding is preposterous. But, rather than say, effective 8/16/16 we are ending the gate pass benefit, they do this whole BS narrative on "maintaining club exclusivity".
I see it from both sides, we the customer are for sure overreacting, to this change, but also, I don't see the benefit to United for the change. As many have pointed out here, it's very easy to just buy a fully refundable ticket, and refund it if you need to meet someone and have access to the post security areas of the airport. So, what is really accomplished here? Just another customer hostile move.