ryman554

Hey.

I really want to give AA a chance. I'm a refugee (wanna be refugee, anyhow) from the dead carcass that United has become... but try as I may, given my business travel to Asia (Japan, Korea, Taiwan) and Germany, I can't seem to make AA/oneworld work.

Whether is it is price (*flights are generally cheaper) or schedule (they arrive with fewer overnight where I don't want them -- routing through HKG / overnighting at HND is great for MR, bad for business)

Those of you in the bay area -- how do you make it work? Do you? Ive given up on Exp Plat for this year and too close to 1K to give it up, but with soft landing and new year approaching, looking for some advice.

brp

We fly out of SJC and get EXP each year. It works for us. Not sure of the meaning of "how do you make it work?" Fly enough and you get status.

Cheers.

Thunderroad

It would help if you explained a big more about your flying patterns and preferences, and the ways in which you feel AA doesn't work. For example:

1. When you fly international, do you generally buy economy tix and try to upgrade using SWUs and/or miles?
2. Are there frequent domestic or international routes that you fly non-stop on UA that you can't fly non-stop on AA?
3. Would there be any reason why you wouldn't want to fly an AA international partner if you accrued AA miles on it?

Xero

We are FT'ers. So we don't mind taking an extra connection, that is just more miles for elite status. Also, for upgrades, connecting passengers trump originating within elite status level So if you are EXP and booked SFO-LAX-JFK, you'll trump EXPs for LAX-JFK when requesting an upgrade. So there are some advantages of living in a spoke. In addition, SFO has a very nice Admirals Club with great food options at T2.

Also, with 16 daily flights to DFW, 12 to LAX, 8 to ORD, 5 to JFK and 3 to MIA, the Bay Area is well connected to AA's other hubs. In addition, AS has significant service out of the Bay Area for the west coast, Hawaii and Mexico flying. Any AS ticket earns full elite miles, even if it is not an AA codeshare. If you are elite, you also get 2 free checked bags and priority security, just like AA. For me, post of my AS flying is to the Pacific Northwest, so flights are short that I can live without the upgrade.

So AA out of the Bay Area really isn't that bad. Yes, it's not a hub, but it doesn't matter for a FT'er. The only hole for AA is Bay Area - Orange County. A lot of people still miss SFO/SJC - SNA. But AA is a company and didn't find the route worthwhile so I just fly WN there.

pantanal

As a United 2MM who just switched to AA, I am very happy with EXP and have qualified for next year EXP. I fly a lot to Latin America so AA works better than United from SFO.

If you fly Europe or Asia, then UA definitely has a massive advantage in terms on non stops . However it depends on where you travel. If you go to Lon, FRA, Zurich then you get United non stops. On the other hand if you are travelling to spain or italy or northern europe, the either way you will need a connection.

Again, depends on your flying pattern

AAerSTL

Consult the following threads:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ilot-base.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...switch-ua.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...bgi-added.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ight-cuts.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...-then-now.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...solidated.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...17-2010-a.html

Enjoy.

ryman554

OK, I fly only (>90%) international. I have to buy the "cheapest available", although there is a little flexibility there. AA (or oneworld) is generally not the cheapest available, at least not justifiably so.

I fly mainly to TYO, SEL, TPE, and DRS. You can guess what industry I am in. Oneworld just doesn't seem to take me to SEL easily, DRS is a toss-up but leans toward star, TYO can be done on JL, and TPE seems to be achievable via HKG, but not mileage accruing.

Throw in LON/MAN for vacation, and perhaps AKL as well... BA there comes to mind and may be doable, if I could justify my work travel toward OW.

I have no problem with partner airlines (I probably would prefer them!), I just need the EQM.

Other than NRT (and even that is a stretch), does flying AA really make sense over to Asia?

Xero

From LAX, AA only has nonstops to NRT and PVG. Yes, AA's Asia network is very weak. In addition, they fly to PEK from ORD.

Are you looking for upgrades? Nonstops? Are you flying flying Y?

Unlike UA, AA has a very liberal SWU policy which works on any fare.

TheBOSman

Flying AA to NRT wouldn't make sense from SFO, the JL SFO-HND flight would be a plus for me flying OW over *A or AA on that route (in effect, not taking that JL flight, but taking it on AA would be a double connection-SFO-XXX-NRT-Tokyo itself, versus SFO-HND with JL, much closer to TYO itself). SEL may be better if the connections HND-GMP (I don't know the timings on the SFO-HND JL flight, the outbound SFO-HND doesn't look great but the return would work out well) on JL aren't too long compared to the SFO-ICN UA nonstop, again, shorter travel time to the city center making up for the extra stop. I have taken OW to ICN, BOS-DFW-NRT on AA and NRT-ICN on JL, but I do agree that the presence seems low. BA starting LHR-ICN helps there, but that is fairly useless for you unless you can stack work and vacation right after each other. TPE would be similar to SEL, with a CX routing through HKG making more sense there. The key for these might be what the AA 100% earning codeshare costs, compared to *A and the JL/CX lesser earning tickets.

BA would be much better for LON/MAN (more service to LHR than UA from SFO nonstop, and no BMI to help with connections on UA anymore). AKL wouldn't be good, you'd have to double connect through LAX/DFW and Australia instead of the nonstop Air New Zealand flight, though that seems to be low priority.

WChou

I can probably guess the exact company you work for.

LarkSFO

This is one of the better arguments / justifications I have read. Thank you.

I have to disagree with you completely on one point though: I am an FT'er, and with very rare exception I always seek out the shortest duration / fewest connection flight.

brp

I agree with this. Because we fly SJC, there really are no no-connection flights since we're not often going to LA, Chicago or Dallas. But we will always choose the single hop through DFW or LAX over the more circuitous routes. We'd rather just take another trip than concoct the roundabout itineraries.

Cheers.

TheBOSman

I would agree too, BOS is a similar boat to SFO as far as AA is concerned (BOS is #6 for AA behind the five hubs, SFO is #7 for AA as my uninformed mind on the matter recalls, don't quote me on those stats!). That said, and not to disappoint the OP, there's a reason the airlines hold strong at the fortress hubs. Since OP can't MR, and is forced to take more direct flights, I just don't see how AA/Oneworld can work within those constraints that OP listed.

Xero, are you including round trips or one ways? AA definitely doesn't have that many one ways to each of those places (should be an average of 10-11 DFW, 6-7 ORD, 6 LAX, 4-5 JFK, 3 MIA each way each day). BOS is 8-9 ORD, 7-8 DFW, 6-7 MIA, 3-4 LAX, 3 JFK, and our still remaining LHR flights. These are summer high schedules mostly, I'm more used to the slower winter weekend schedules in my personal experience.

abk

I fly Asia also and for me it works because I generally need to go into Hong Kong and out of Shanghai (or the reverse) and for my inter Asia travel CX/Dragon are pretty much perfect. However, I have recently been looking at some Star awards to Asia and was astounded at how many choices you have in the Asia market. As a SFO flyer, I think your Asia options on Star are so much greater and more efficient than OneWorld that you would have to like the Advantage program alot to make AA and OneWorld work for you.

LarkSFO

Actually, Xero was the OP for this statistic...

September 17th

SFO-DFW: 11 departures
SFO-ORD: 6 departures
SFO-MIA: 3 departures
SFO-LAX: 6 departures
SFO-JFK: 5 departures