Originally Posted by
ou81two
Unless you want to start spending a lot of time sitting in SFO changing might not be a good idea.
Not sure if you read the OP's synopsis of his/her travel pattern... Mostly flies international paid J to different regions within Africa and on occassion travels on AS for leisure up and down the west coast along with the once-in-awhile business trip to the East Coast.
Not sure what SFO has to do with it as the OP's travel patterns does not require connecting in SFO. The OP is with AS due to AS's extensive partnership with international partners particularly BA/AF/KL [seems like OP flies to Europe directly from SEA then onto his/her destination].
Nobody is saying the OP should dump AS for UA/*A, AS will still be the primary airline for domestic travel, but split the international travel between AS's partners and Star Alliance [LH] or one-stop to Africa trips on UA via IAD.