I know this is unrelated, but I think that rebooking guidelines may have changed across the board.

I have some flights in late DEC in revenue F that have all been automatically rebooked because of schedule changes by UA, one flight by 4+ hours, and all are now through different connection/hub cities. I was supposed to meet my brother in one of the connection/hub cities for a couple hours in the airport and I called and asked them to rebook my flights through the original connection city and also complained about why they put me on a flight over 4 hours earlier than I originally booked and changed my routing. Even though seats in F were available on other routings that would've worked better for me, UA has refused to rebook me on any of those flights unless I pay the upcharge to the currently available fare classes. We're talking thousands of dollars here. I've talked with 3 different agents and no one will fix it for me.

I always thought that UA would allow free changes into any open seat when they made schedule changes of more than 4 hours. Also, I've never had UA change my routing before unless there was a cancellation. Is this new policy?