Your reasoning doesn't hold water for the simple fact that the airlines are one of the few industries where in fact people who spend less quite often get better treatment.. it's their business model. Last minute one-way ticket EWR-TPA @ $600 with a middle seat, back row in coach while someone who paid $200/rt sits up front with an aisle seat.
Furthermore, I get the revenue argument but let's face it, 90% of the travelers who spend on the club (and the reason last minute flights are so expensive), are business travelers spending someone else's money. For many people with the Chase card, they got it for the perk (when they have MANY other options) and when they plan to use it on a family trip but cannot because some folks who literally don't spend any of their own money on travel.. sit in their entitled chairs while complaining about their jobs while overweight and unhappy in life - complaining that they deserve to sit down and speed up their heart disease progression because they 'paid' for that right with someone else's money. *Not everyone of course but Sig upset me and I know exactly the type.
Well I own my business which I very much enjoy and can still run a good number of miles with 7:30 splits so my 45 year old heart's doing well, thanks for your concern. Why that's relevant to anything I'm not sure? It's a business decision, I pay for myself and my employees to use a club because it allows us to get work done while traveling and arrive better rested for whatever we're traveling for, which allows us to be more effective and have more down time with our families when we get home. United recognizes that people like me stop paying for that when we stop seeing the benefits for ourselves and our employees, which is the case when it's too crowded to get a seat. And we potentially stop flying United since competitive airline's lounges don't suffer from this issue and it's impractical to switch terminals at ORD just for a lounge, for example. And our revenue loss far outweighs the what they lose by the few disgruntled folks like you who are disappointed when they can't get into an already full lounge during their one trip a year using a voucher that generated next to no revenue for United potentially on a ticket that also generates very little revenue compared to business travel.
This isn't about some kind of entitlement that you think you're owed because you're a good family man unlike those "overweight and unhappy" people who "paid with someone else's money". It's a business decision, if you don't like it than please,
please take your business elsewhere! If you want to get into a moral argument, then lets talk about stereotyping me or anyone else as some kind of "type" that you know; overweight, unhappy, spending other peoples money good for nothings. Especially ridiculous since in this case it's not even accurate, but an a-hole move in general! Definitely something to be proud of there buddy.
