Yeah, UA must be really tight on their cheap inventory -- if I plan a few weeks in advance, they're competitive, but if I do one or two weeks out for business travel, UA is rarely in the running price-wise.

However, they do have a nicer F product, and E+ means it's okay to not get upgraded.

As for me, I abandoned Dividend Miles late last year once the 50% bonus for Gold came in (it won't affect me for a year or two, but I wanted to build up status on UA).

Of course, it looks like UA is in some trouble and may have to cut back on their nice FF differentiators.... will be interesting to see what happens. If I abandon UA, I'm not sure whether I'll go back to US or just do the cheapest fare thing.... Depends on how much travel I end up doing for business I guess.