Originally Posted by
amolkold
I disagree with this. While UA/CO and US are both *A, their programs are much much different.
UA/CO is a partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards, so if you earn Chase UR points (from the Sapphire Preferred or Ink Bold), you can transfer to UA/CO. They allow for one-way awards.
US is not a partner of anything except SPG. However, they have a lot of "buy miles" promotions and you can gain a lot of US miles through promotions. US does not allow for one-way awards. In addition, their Barclay's credit card is one of the best deals of credit cards I think -- the credit inquiry is done on Transunion instead of the other 2, 40K miles are earned on first purchase, and you get 10K miles each year (which washes out the $89 annual fee).
Sure, both can be used for *A, but they are completely different programs. I participate in both and am glad I do. OP has said that they don't fly enough to earn a lot of miles, so elite status isn't an issue. If OP were to buy a ticket on *A, he could decide later which airline to credit to. But should still sign up for both programs.
But I think you forgot one very important thing, given that the OP is a newbie who will take a long time to get to antyhing.
UA/CO are going to be in *A as long as *A exists.
But there the distinct piossiblity (if it merges with AA) that US could move to OW within a couple years. Now, to you, a couple years may long enough to decide whether to burn US miles on *A while you can or accept them moving to OW. But if the OP is making plans for slow longtime earning on *A, I would say UA/CO because it's "sure" to stay in *A, rather than US because there's too much of a risk that it will go to another alliance within a couple years.
I kept getting advice from people to start collecting BMI for *A as recently as a year ago or so. Now it's being bought by BA (and thus natually going to OW)! There is definitely a downside risk to choosing a "small outlier" airline that seems to have good promotions
if you only want it as long as it's in a particular alliance.
(And I don't know about you, but most people who are drilled say they earn US miles to redem on partners, not on US itself).
Meanwhile, I think it's silly to tell a newbie to "sing up for them all" without explaining what you mean by "all" (do you mean every airline the world? every regional LCC in the US? or just "all the ones you are likely to fly"?) and without explaining about expiration policties. I've seen too many newbies burned because they collected in too many different programs, didn't learn about expiration, and then lost miles in some of them because they stopped paying attention a year later. (Just because someone is excited now and posts on FT doesn't mean their life can't become busier a year and a half from now, exactly at the time they'll have to start being concered about how to keep miles here or there from expiring.)