Originally Posted by
canadiancow
No. On United, I have to put in effort to get E+. On AC, there's a pretty good chance I can get an upgrade on a Flex fare.
So if the price is the same, I'm booking AC. And I think that would be true for most AC FF's. What's the point in flying an airline you don't have status with if the price is the same?
You raise good points with that, especially with the nearly guaranteed e-upgrades as SE.
The only advantages of going UA that I can think of are:
1) connecting through a UA hub such as ORD or DEN to avoid going through customs during a connection (AC would go through YYZ, YUL, etc).
2) using ita / googleflights / multi-city booking to force a higher mileage earning journey (i.e. connecting through SFO/IAH instead of DEN/ORD). i had been doing this before to get around 50%+ more mileage than AC, at the cheap UA fares. costs time though.