Originally Posted by
findark
In my experience with previous schedule changes (routes getting dropped, usually) some kind of reasonable published guidance for agents usually lags the actual GDS update by a week or two and it usually pays to wait for the guidance (eg they adjusted seasonality on SFO-AKL a while back and IIRC after guidance was issued they would rebook even award tickets in the same cabin on NZ metal, but before the memo agents would do a lot less). No guarantees of course - I'm not up on how HKG is getting handled.
This is kind of what I was thinking from past experience - sometimes taking action right away limits options because no agent bulletin has been posted. I know from personal experience that in July with DL, they delayed 339neo start date on SEA-PVG and I was booked in premium economy (DPS) one way as a DM during the impacted period and was moved to business class on the 767 a few days after they loaded the swap. I also have heard from colleagues that if downgraded, the offer seems to be around $500 on DL - so figured with UA things would be handled similarly. It sounds like that is potentially not the case and UA could care less about 1Ks experiencing PP downgrades and would prefer you refund if unhappy and buy a presumably more expensive ticket.
It just strikes me as odd that UA loaded a 787-10 on LAX-PVG in August for December/January and one month later is swapping it back to a 787-9.