Originally Posted by blug

Missing the point entirely.
It's not about "UA is launching some promotion to make achieving status easier. It's so unfair, because I won't need that promotion to get my status anyway!" I don't recall anyone saying that.
It's about launching a promotion to incentivize people to spend more money, or choose UA over other carriers, or even take trips they don't need, in order to achieve statuses, and then decides that everyone gets their statuses anyway.
Think about opening a credit card where the bonus is 100k miles after spending $10k in 3 months. You put all your spending on the card to meet the criteria. Then it turns out they'd give the bonus anyway regardless of the spending. That's what it is.