cyborg

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LANDJ999

I loved UAL in the 80's and 90's. On time, great service, FA's. Great.
Went all over the world free on Miles.

Hate it now.

RNE

United Airlines peaked in 2017. That is to say, it hasn't happened yet. But it will, if it continues to value high-value flyers over "cheap elites" like me.

RNE, Platinum for only $6k, but I really shouldn't be.

uastarflyer

In 2010-2011 they provided me 4x saver to Florida over Xmas, Hawaii over spring break, and Europe for summer. And the year prior, 4x SWU/mileage upgrade at booking to/from Asia.

Not expecting that ever again.

johnden

I am looking at some last minute holiday travel.

On every route there is at least one other option, sometimes 2 or more. Every time the UA flights have less inventory and higher prices. There are many routes where UA is selling the last few seats for $1000, and US/AA, B6, DL, AS, etc have 2/3 full planes and seats for $4-500.

So, UA is definitely doing something right. It may be good inventory management. Their planes are definitely more full to most vacation destinations and there are less *A options than SkyTeam or OneWorld.

cyborg

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Portolan

Likewise, early 2000's for me. As PE, I got 500 mile upgrade certs which could be (but I never had to) rolled over into RDM. In other words, I effectively was upgraded 20% of the time (the fractional earning rate for the 500 mile certs)...much better than I've seen with UDU. And, the 100% RDM bonus. And lower redemption rates for premium award travel.

MBS MillionMiler

For me, it was the early 1990s, when I was a teenager. I didn't know any better then, but we were traveling in 3-class F to places like Australia and Hawaii during Christmas/Spring Break/Summer Vacation for a fraction the miles it would take today.

This continued into the late 1990s when I started traveling for work...Upgrades always cleared as a 1P, and more often than not, agents wouldn't even collect the paper 500-mile upgrades.

And it was still good up until 2010 or so until 500-mile upgrades ended. I went something like 2 1/2 years without missing an upgrade...Maybe missed a short ORD-PHL in there or something, but didn't matter, ORD-SFO, LAX, LAS, IAD, MCO...I ALWAYS cleared with a great strategy of using CR-1s and 500-milers. At the end of the year, I somehow still had upgrades left, even after upgrading companions on many of my trips.

I really miss the 500-miler system.

Explore

It was great until shortly before the {merger}, when they introduced UDUs and tightened up on the routing rules. Before that a 1K would almost always clear with the instrument upgrades at their disposal. And you could get 5 segments each way on almost any transcon itinerary, including travel to spoke cities and north-south segs offering a 500-mile minimum for each. International itins offered even more segments - I remember doing 7 each way between SJC and LHR about 10 years ago.

After the {merger}, 1K upgrade percentages from SFO went out the window when virtually any Y or B fare was automatically upgraded, including inexpensive government-procured YCA fares.

Oh, there were nice unexpected bennies like notes from the captain and gifted bottles of wine from the FAs. I found the international C recliners to be perfectly adequate for sleeping - I really don't need flat beds and there are now less C seats available.

Sure, crews were surly sometimes, but they're still not consistent.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

"When did United Airlines provide their best value to customers and why?"

I think it was March or April of this year. Why? Because I was buying sub-$1500 all-in BF tickets to Europe from Hawaii. I really didn't care that I would have gotten better meals or service on Delta or American for $3000 more.

Frequent Freak

Things were pretty good at the bottom of the last couple of recessions. I miss recessions.

flyingnosh

Best value was when ticket prices were half what they are now, i.e., in the mid-2000s when the load factors were way below 100%. Ten years ago, a TATL wasn't a good deal unless it was less than $500.

Frequent Freak

Summer of 2009 (I know, five years ago) saw upgradable ORD-Europe fares in the $600s all summer. Those were sweet. Combined with double EQM all year it was hard not to make 1K. Then there were the SIN runs of the 2001-03 era.

ItsAnAdventure

For me, definitely around 2009. Post-introduction of UDU, pre-introduction of tightened routing rules. 1P for Pennies on the Dollar. :]

cyborg

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