Thank you. That was my initial thoughts, but friends insisted it would be straightforward (especially given that I still flew quite a bit) and thought based on first call it seemed so unusually simple and straightforward and customer oriented (esp for UAL). But it definitely has not been.
What is sort of frustrating, is that following the initial offer and acceptance, I booked a lot of UA tickets, and in each case there were much lower priced alternatives equally non stop and conviently timed, which I could have chosen. But I chose to pay a 20% premium as a 'loyal United customer.'

PS: And the interactions with the customer service team are like peering into the empty void of AI slop I think we should all get used to....