MilesBuzz! - Tired of United - Who should I switch to?

I am finally calling it quits with United for a wide number of reasons (really crappy award availability being the big one). I am out of SFO and though I don't fly nearly as much as a large number of folks on this forum, I want to switch my primary flying and mile earning to someone else (I don't frequent any particular destination, so I just want someone that has a number of partners). To go along with that I also want to get a mileage earning Visa (not Amex or MC) - preferably with a signup bonus. Maybe this is the wrong forum for this, but any thoughts?

I am finally calling it quits with United for a wide number of reasons (really crappy award availability being the big one). I am out of SFO and though I don't fly nearly as much as a large number of folks on this forum, I want to switch my primary flying and mile earning to someone else (I don't frequent any particular destination, so I just want someone that has a number of partners). To go along with that I also want to get a mileage earning Visa (not Amex or MC) - preferably with a signup bonus. Maybe this is the wrong forum for this, but any thoughts?

I'm in a similar boat as you in that I don't really fly all that much. If you fly intra-California a lot, take a good hard look at Southwest Rapid Rewards. Otherwise, I'd start looking at AA. SJC is also better served by AA than UA.

Alaska has a ton of random partners so they may suit your travel patterns. Otherwise if your destinations are varied you may be better off simply buying the cheapest ticket each time. IMHO if you don't fly enough to make elite status on a carrier, buying the cheapest fare available makes sense.

http://www.alaskaair.com/as/mileageplan/MileagePartners_Airline.asp

But it's pretty difficult to fly airlines other than UA out of SFO so keep that in mind.

i would go with AA. they were my primary carrier for years out of sjc/sfo. i now split UA and AA, but with AA you can pretty much get anywhere you need to in the US from sjc/sfo with 1 connection (DFW/ORD/LAX), or within Cali nonstop (lax/san/sna and other smaller cities).

their frequent flyer program is similar to UA's so you'll already basically know how it works.

I'm still very happy with AA out of SFO, and I'm in my 8th year with them as a top tier flyer. I'll be flying them to the Brooklyn Do tomorrow on an award ticket just booked a few days ago. Even if you don't expect to get to top tier, your calls will be answered in the U.S., and they offer customer service by both phone and e-mail. They offer 40K off peak awards to Europe and South America, and also have One World awards that let you travel to up to 16 destinations on one ticket.

If you do reach top tier, you get access to international first class lounges on any fare basis (I had lunch at the Qantas First Class lounge restaurant in Sydney last week using a $600 coach ticket which they upgraded, at no cost, to business, based on One World status).

They do offer a challenge for status, but they charge for that now.

I posted some comments in the San Francisco forum back in 2007 that are pretty much still the case:
Best Bay Area Airline Alternative to United and Southwest (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/san-francisco/671564-best-bay-area-airline-alternative-united-southwest.html)

I would recommend you check the AA wiki (http://www.flyerguide.com/wiki/index.php/Category:American_Airlines) to get further details.

You might also look at Alaska, as I know at least one Bay Area flyer that is very happy with them. They are an AA partner so you could redeem Alaska miles on AA, among other carriers.

The current big boy of the Airline Alliance industries is Star Alliance, with One World and Skyteam tailing one another.

Take your pick..

for the best usage of miles, there is no better airline than American Airlines. I fly primarily with American and every single time I wanted to book an award ticket, I'd just go hold a regular paid itinerary and then call up AA on the phone, speak to a HOME GROWN AMERICAN WHO SPEAKS AND UNDERSTANDS AMERICAN ENGLISH, who will pull the miles out of my account, ticket the itinerary and best of all, not bother asking me for any fees, and I'm not even an elite member with them.

In addition, ALL RDM MILES earned on the account from ALL sources count towards the 1MM and 2MM lifetime Gold and Platinum tiers.

For example, say I'm a Premier Exec with UA and I fly a 20,000 mile roundtrip in F with a 50,000 bonus mile promotion.

How many miles do I get? 20K base, 10K Class of Service Bonus, 20K elite bonus, 50K promotion bonus.
That adds up to 100K miles total, but wait, that's RDM miles. How many of those miles actually go towards the 1MM Lifetime Premier Exec counter? Only the 20K base miles.

Let's say I then fly a further segment with Air China in F for 10K miles, guess what, I get a grand total of 0 miles counting towards the 1MM mark.

================================================== =
Now let's go over to American:

Let's say I'm a Plat with AA and I fly a 20,000 mile roundtrip in F with a 50,000 bonus mile promotion.

How many miles do I get? 20K base, 10K Class of Service Bonus, 20K elite bonus, 50K promotion bonus.
That adds up to 100K miles total and while I'd only get 20K EQM for my yearly qualification, I'm getting 100K miles counting toward my 1MM and 2MM milestones! Add something further to that, say I paid $10K for the ticket with my brand new AAdvantage MC as the first purchase on the card. I get 10K miles from that, 30K miles from the spend $750 bonus, that's another 40K miles counting toward my 1MM and 2MM milestones!

If AA's 2MM milestone is roughly equal in rewards to United's 1MM Milestone, let's see where all that took me:

For united, that flight above got me 2% closer to lifetime 1P
For AA, the flight above got me 7% closer to lifetime plat.

And besides, especially now with AA's new one way flex awards, it's AA all the way for me! (though I do keep United around as an alternate every now and then...)

I am finally calling it quits with United for a wide number of reasons (really crappy award availability being the big one). I am out of SFO and though I don't fly nearly as much as a large number of folks on this forum, I want to switch my primary flying and mile earning to someone else (I don't frequent any particular destination, so I just want someone that has a number of partners). To go along with that I also want to get a mileage earning Visa (not Amex or MC) - preferably with a signup bonus. Maybe this is the wrong forum for this, but any thoughts?


before you jump ship to another airline, you should ask whether your exact complaint is remedied by that airline. I.e. will some other airline have dramatically better mileage redemption availability? If not, then what have you switched for?

If you can manage flying everywhere via HKG, then CX is an excellent choice.

If you can manage flying everywhere via HKG, then CX is an excellent choice.

Do you accrue miles on all CX fares? I know when I've looked at them in the past the cheapest fares do not accrue miles that I can use on AA, so I burn AA miles instead. Can you accrue miles on those fares and deposit them into a CX account?

Do you accrue miles on all CX fares? I know when I've looked at them in the past the cheapest fares do not accrue miles that I can use on AA, so I burn AA miles instead. Can you accrue miles on those fares and deposit them into a CX account?

I think it is only Y, B, and H earn 100% of actual miles, all other Y fare earn NO MILES, which is a big disadvantage if you need to go to asia, as CX is the biggest asian player in OneWorld.

I am finally calling it quits with United for a wide number of reasons (really crappy award availability being the big one).

Crappy award availability really depends on how you look into it and how patient / flexible you are. Yes there is starnet blocking, but many of us are still manageble to get many F and C awards on partners airlines. I have managed to get OZ F award twice, once on SQ F, once on NH F, and once on UA F, all international long haul in the past 6 years.