Originally Posted by
redmaple9
Thanks all. My base is Boston and I fly to Shanghai and Tokyo. Actually what I'm thinking is to fly United but to use the Air Canada FF system. Would that work. it seems like AC requires less miles to get free tickets.
Tokyo is fairly easy to reach from Boston, but needing to visit Shanghai means that if you fly AC you'll have to double connect somewhere, since they only fly there from Vancouver.
AC does have a better award program, but you won't get the main benefit of flying on UA, Economy Plus, if you credit all your miles to AC. Continental now has a slightly better award program than UA, and by this summer you should have full Economy Plus and domestic upgrade privileges on United if you have status on Continental.
So I'd recommend crediting to Continental and flying UA if you don't care about getting the international upgrade certificates (or fly less than 100,000 miles a year).