As a plat you are earning complimentary 500 mile upgrades as you fly, you aren't paying for them. When you use these complimentary 500 mile upgrades to upgrade you are receiving an upgrade that does not cost you $160 but is provided to you in exchange for the complimentary 500 mile upgrades AA awarded you for flying on a paid fare on AA. AA's program is different and is not necessarily noncompetitive or worse than UA. If it was noncompetitive why are you flying AA?