Perhaps if UA have plans to redesign their cabin layout e.g. produce a separate Premium cabin this would likely require a specific booking class for that cabin (or some other IT limiting requirement that differentiates it from economy)
*S/G may be prevented from acquiring (or at least pre-booking/reserving) the E+ seats that currently exist in the present, in an effort to free those seats for when such a change in cabin layout occurs in the future. If a *S/G member were to be located a E+ seat which later essentially doesn't exist it, the rectification would require more than just a change of seat number.
Following this assumption, I would have thought that those *S/G members already assigned an E+ seat would keep them until closer to any cabin redesign date.
This is speculation and I have nothing but some (speculative) FT posts to suggest a cabin layout may occur, but it is one possible explanation and possibly some hope that it isn't necessary a permanent change intended solely to degrade *A benefits but more to accommodate a transition. Then again such a change in cabin design wouldn't automatically mean the instigation of automatic upgrades to a Premium Economy cabin for *S and *Gs.
Last edited by jbfield; Sep 12, 06 at 9:48 am