Just when it seemed like United was starting to turn a corner...

Whether or not this whole scheme makes sense or not, or is good for elite flyers or not...they are crushing their brand. None of the rest of it matters. They are entering mainstream dialogue, late night shows, etc, as a punch line. They spend millions of dollars trying to debut a new business class and reset the dialogue on their airline, and they're blowing it in a matter of days. We'll see how much this snowballs, but for the negative publicity alone...so not worth it.