^^ This. Yes, I think the motivation is to allow business flyers with GM or Silver status a way to get into E+ without running afoul of their corporate travel departments. If nothing else, it shows you how bad UA must think their own E- really is.

I think you are wrong on this. Even DL, with their much smaller C+ cabins, provides free C+ to their premier members. UA knows they have to fill the E+ seats somehow, and giving them to Premier members is a low-cost way to do that.

I'm not saying that they won't make it more complicated and cumbersome -- I think they will. And if they copy DL, and make Gold members wait for E+ seats -- to me, that's a huge downgrade, as I'm not willing to risk having to sit in E- on a US airline for any significant length of time.

UA gets most of my business because the all-in cost is lower, once I include the cost of seating on another airline. If UA is also going to charge me for seating, they will win much less of my business.

If they remove E+ from Gold, then I'm kind of glad that they devalued the program - it just confirms my view that I'm done with UA after I've used the instruments I earned for 2020.

On DL, you can see C+ "upgrade" availability at the time of booking by clicking when logged in as a DM/PM. The "upgrade" clears after ticketing is complete, but this is within the 24 hour cancel period, so getting the confirmation after booking has no practical consequence. [DL extends the free "24 hour" cancel privilege even to tickets purchased on the day of departure.]

DL also tends to block two bulkhead C+ seats for special needs passengers. AFAIK these seats look occupied on the DL seat maps (but show as blocked on EF), so this would be one way that DL doesn't give last seat availability to DM/PM without it being very obvious. Of course the number is seats held back will depend on aircraft type, route, day of week, time of day, etc. just as it does for free elite FC upgrades.

I'm not aware of any miserly corporate travel departments that permit DL C+ but not UA E+.

Nor am I. Our miserly travel people don't permit separate "seat upgrade" charges on either DL or UA.

E- isn't bad. It's standard legacy carrier Economy. Perhaps a bit worse than DL and a bit better than AA.

But yes, any business traveler working on the plane is going to at least want an extra legroom seat.

We're actually the opposite. Because of our contract with United, we allow UA E+ but not DL C+ (primarily as a way to encourage travelers to book UA). This change will make life a lot easier for our travelers because they'll be able to search for Premium Economy in our corporate travel booking system and book straight into Economy Plus. Previously they had to purchase Economy in our booking system then upgrade to Economy Plus on united.com afterwards (because the system couldn't handle paid seat fees). Many employees still tried to search for Premium Economy in the booking system and ended up with almost no UA results for domestic itineraries (but tons of DL results).

I'm not convinced that this portends a devaluation. I think it's just bundling E+ with the fare, and if that's the case it's a good thing.

I guess that depends on what year you start "legacy". Noone is going to tell me UA's current average E- coach pitch is the same as it was 20 years ago. And no one is goin to tell me 10-across on some planes is "legacy".

It has a feel of that to me as well . . . it's always struck me as a bit odd that an economy pax who purchases a Y or B fare doesn't get a 'free" E+ seat with that ticket if they're not elite. Seems like the least they could do (especially with a "free" upgrade). Why wouldn't you want to appeal to high-fare economy pax by throwing in E+?

Yeah, I don't buy that explanation.

In addition, removing the seat quality pricing discrimination likely means higher average sale price.

Put me in the camp that thinks MM benefits are about to go "bye, bye!".

This could also be bad for SDC. I always do it based on seatmap. But if it works the same way as for first upgrades, you'd be kicked back to E- and can just hope for an upgrade.

Well UA does have it out for lifetime members, so this makes sense.

I don't think they need to remove E+ from Golds to offer this....more concerning to one's ability to get E+ is the tiny E+ cabins on the new 787 retrofits. I am happy about this as they were leaving money on the table with the old system, for example, I'm allowed to book PE on transcons but not allowed to pay for premium seats....but most flights on UA didn't have PE so I was stuck in E-.

I'd even buy these out of my own pocket if I could get an E+ seat at booking and mileage credit for a B fare to a foreign program.

Is the DL C+ system also applied to international/overseas tickets?
If so, I imagine such a rollout could affect overseas reservations eventually as well .....