Before the merger, I would guess the lowest F cabin fare on this route was 2-3x higher than it is today, even without the one-way hidden city options that a growing number of savvy customers are using, and now we have a combination of cheap F fares with the rest of the F seats getting bought up by Kettles for pennies on the dollar at check-in.

At least Larry K at Continental communicated a goal that each elite tier should expect to be upgraded a minimum of "x%" of the time (I forget the actual targets from back then) even with better fares and buy-ups, but at United, Kirby is perfectly happy with everyone from GS to Silver never getting a free upgrade provided that F seat is sold for any amount of money from $10 on up.