Originally Posted by
jjmoore
I'm glad this is happening right now, and not when I'm sitting with 1.9MM miles about to cross into LT Platinum. If this takes place, and the upgrade policy from Y to F becomes upgrade into E+, and instruments become a requirement.... you know that upgrades will also be impacted.... and it will be hard to ever get out of an economy class seat without paying a significant cost, especially on int'l.
This seems a bit alarmist to me. I'd almost bet UA doesn't touch F upgrades. Why? Because it's the biggest selling point of an elite program. The prospect of a free upgrade to first class. Also, they have become so good at selling the seats and (apparently) the elite ranks are still so swollen that it's not hurting their frequent flyer base to the point they have to change the pricing dynamic of FC. In addition, with the rollout of PlusPoints on Dec 4, more people will be burning points to sit up front which could have a negative impact on the few CPUs we were getting anyway.
So, no, I doubt UA makes any detrimental changes to the upgrade program. If anything, I can see them adding LAX/SFO-EWR (and the few to BOS) to the CPU mix. Why? Because CPU on that route will be 0.000001% chance given all the instruments that are waitlisted and never clear. On the off chance an elite flies on a Saturday red-eye, they may get lucky. This is exactly why DL changed their program and allows free upgrades on these routes now.
-RM