Originally Posted by jedison

Not crappy for UA (which waits until the last minute to make sure they've squeezed out every last ounce of revenue) or 1Ks (who United wants to keep happy, because, whatever the fare, they've flown at least 100K miles, give or take). I am a bit surprised, though, that they make it more difficult to redeem miles by requiring a higher fare class. I would think United would want people to redeem those miles and get them off their books. The SWUs expire, miles really don't (theoretically they do, but for anybody with enough to get a flight or upgrade I think it's pretty unusual).