I have two UA international trips coming up so far this year-- EWR-TLV and EWR-JNB. Have found business seats not only a bit higher this year but more troubling has been availability in lower-priced fare buckets. Booked one of the first seats on a JNB flight in Nov and nothing available lower than a D class. So a ticket in D costs about $2500 more than the Z class last year. I suppose the upside of this is that with other travel this year, I'll requalify for Platinum and start approaching 1K. Now as far as TLV-- again nothing lower than D class.