leland

I'm a former frequent flier contemplating severe status and devals 2012-2013 UA 1K and AS MVP Gold; 2013 will be UA Gold. I could also match to DL Plat until the end of the month.

I will probably travel roughly 75-100K BIS this year; roughly 60/40 int'l and domestic. Some int'l will be J.

My dilemma -- have one int'l and one transcon to book right now. Do I go w/ UA, AS or DL? I value premium award redemptions, transcon upgrades and better seating.

Below is how I tend to rank things...Can someone help talk me into DL Plat or AS? Otherwise might as well just stay with UA.

• UA: I'm really fed up, but have gold and 350K RDMs. That's nothing to sneeze at. I'm leaning towards sticking with them as at very least I can continue build up and use these miles even with the deval. My upgrade luck between SEA & EWR is also pretty good. *A Gold is also super-handy to have. Negatives are the continuing devals, SEA service cuts, lack of onboard wifi and frankly terrible service.
• AS: Like them a lot, and have 100K RDMs. Ability to earn on DL or AA is great, although has no no E+ or EC. Wouldn't mind continuing with them, just not sure I like going w/o E+ or EC on a regular basis. For a SEA flyer they have the ultimate in flexibility, but will be very limited on getting upgrades.
• DL: Could match to platinum, but have no RDMs and apparently they're worthless anyway. I don't see much reason to switch to DL even as a platinum. That's also because everyone else flying from SEA will be way higher. DL EC and service I rate higher than UA, but there's so much more E+ space on UA than EC space on DL. MP still far more valuable than DL for redemption. That said, I know least about DL as an airline and am open to being swayed.

djp98374

What do you want to do with the miles you have earned? Is there a place you want to travel to ?? If so which airline can get you there the easiest?

Do you mostly travel in the west or internationally or to the east?

If DL will match your status I would take them up on it just to see how it is with them vs how United was.

Gardyloo

It really does depend on where you're flying of course. But Alaska MVPG members do get free access to Main Cabin Extra on AA flights (= E+) and with the addition of numerous one-way awards, AS' program is pretty attractive, with redemptions on various Oneworld and Skyteam airlines, as well as EK. You're probably right re easy upgrades on AS metal being hard to get, but that too depends on your routes.

With US leaving Star, I think the options for UA elites in non-hub cities in the west are going to be increasingly difficult, so probably I'd warehouse your UA miles and move forward.

leland

I travel all over... East, west and international. Priority for miles is getting premium cabins internationally and better seats/upgrades going east. On west coast AS meets my needs by going where I want to go, now DL does too

Sad to see UA go, but guess there's no point to go back if they continue to exit SEA.

On DL, I just don't know if it's worthwhile to sign up for sky pesos, especially since there will be no upgrades between SEA & NYC. That said easy access to the status would be nice. Just seems like AS has a better program.

Thamilton10

Clearly I am adding in my two cents a little bit late in the game, but as a seattle flyer there is one benefit from AS that I think frequently gets overlooked. With any reward redemptions that fly only on AS metal you are allowed a free stopover in your connecting city. For almost all AS flights connections happen through Sea. So what you can do is bundle award vacations together for half the award value. Eg. Book first class award ticket from EWR to HNL with a stopover in SEA. You can have the stopover take up to one year from the time of booking. MVP gold can also make changes to their reservation without any fees so you don't have to know when you will actually use the second leg of the trip as long as you know the destination that you are heading towards. This isn't as helpful with international flights as AS doesn't have that much to offer, but it is a great perk for those based in Sea for any service that is provided on AS metal. You can also do all that booking online which is nice.

leland

I had indeed overlooked that. I am not very advanced in my reward bookings, but this could be incredibly handy. My followup to the thread here is that I did switch myself to AS and haven't looked back. I'll be gold in a few weeks based on non-AS mileage alone, and will likely go for 75k as unless I can hit Gold on *A then doesn't make much sense to fly another rev mile on UA for a very very long time. With DL hubbing up SEA I'm sure I can migrate over to them later in the game.

What I don't quite understand on this one is how to make it work for savings.

E.g.

EWR-HNL; stopover in SEA
pay outright for SEA-EWR & HNL-SEA?

Is this for when there are good one-way fares on these locations? Or just to cut partial cost from two trips?

I'm thinking of this because I do have a SEA-BOS r/t coming up in August, and it might be a good opportunity to try this out. However right now buying a r/t that is Gold upgradeable is $750 out of pocket. Not really sure what I'm gaining if doing partial mileage other than forcing myself to go to Hawaii (note: not a bad thing).

sarahlee

Do you pay for your own flights?

If you do - I love AS. I just found out that if their pricing goes down - you can request a refund of the difference. It's an automatic e-voucher you get. No other airline does this except Jetblue. AWESOME.

gtslow

Wow someone in the exact same boat as me. I'm currently a United 1k and I think I could probably renew that for next year or at least hit platinum. I started the Delta Status Match/Challenge request for the exact same reason you did. I'm sick and tired of having to connect even to get to large cities, and I'm tired of flying on regional jets with no amenities all the time. Ever since their move to A concourse it has all gone down hill.

One plus about Delta is they are giving double MQM's this year for flights leaving or traveling to Seattle. This is most likely for them to compete with Delta as they turn SEA into a mini-hub. Another reason I chose Delta over Alaska is I use my miles to travel to Asia occasionally as my wife has family there.

Hopefully Delta processes my status challenge request soon as I have 4 trips to ATL coming up and I'm currently on a trip to PHX which I would love to go towards that challenge.

dgreen12

AS has partners that fly to Asia.

And you can redeem F awards on those partners. Try getting F on Delta.

SWCPHX

WN does this also.

EmailKid

A very poor reason to choose WN

Well, unless you only fly lower 48. OK, now some flights to Caribbean

And oh ya, HOU to south of the border coming .....

SWCPHX

I was only pointing out that AS is not alone in providing credit for fare drops.