Originally Posted by
starflyer
I have to believe this was intended as sarcasm. Maybe US frequent flyers are overjoyed at the prospects of a merger as their program is rather uncompetitive (except perhaps for Star Alliance awards that would disappear). I would think all AA frequent flyers should be quite scared at the reduction in benefits expected if Doug Parker and team take over.
It's not that uncompetitive when compared with UA. UA gives a slight bit more in terms of confirmed regional upgrades and SWUs, but they're also difficult to use, and the SWUs have to be bought in W or above to even play that lottery.
US is much better for upgrades as they won't sell them out from under their elites, but their F product isn't as good as UA's (not that UA's is stellar).
US may be a bit stingy with their metal, but as long as I can book *A awards using UA's metal for about the same price as using UA miles, I can deal with it.
Had you compared it to UA of a few years ago, I absolutely would have agreed. Now, not so much as many of UA's benefits are only on paper and are difficult to use in the real world. Compare all the other benefits, like baggage, lounge access, priority, etc, and you'll find them to be about the same.