If UA "follows" by making VWQST upgradable with miles (for a fee), then that may not be a bad thing. However, the fear is that UA will mess something up when they make changes to the rules, as history have shown us. The other fear is that, with a finite number of seats (especially the relatively small C section on a 777 compared to a 744), will this change increase the number of people upgrading such as to tarnish my so-far stellar upgrade record?

On the other hand, there are also plenty of times when UA chose not to follow others, like the recent series of fuel surcharges that came and went, came and went. Also, Economy Plus is still available fleetwide even though AA is backing out of MRTC, and nobody else has anything similar. So I give them some credit, not much, but some.