Originally Posted by
Paulchili
Just to compare.
I am watching UA availability SFO-SYD for near future booking.
Every single day in Dec 2017 so far (12/1-12/10) had premium seats to SYD with one connection. Every day there has been a choice of 3 airlines - CA via PEK, OZ via ICN and UA/NZ via AKL. Best one is SFO-AKL in UA F and AKL-SYD in NZ J for 80K miles.
Many of these are still open.
Compare that with AA
Why in the world would I be collecting/buying AA miles?
I know, award availability is not the only reason to be loyal to an airline but it is an important consideration for me. When I choose to spend my money with them, I want something in return from them. Let's face it - it is not the service that makes me choose AA (nor UA, for that matter), rather it's the award availability that I want in return. YMMV.
PS UA engine shows ahead when there are mixed cabins without having to go through the booking process and a single click reveals what the "mixture" is.
Oh man - not just Oz, but domestically, Asia, Europe - UA and Star award availability is so much better it's not even funny. Sure UA charges 80K miles one-way SE Asia-US vs 70K AA - but UA has 10x the number of partners and 100x the available award space in advance. With AA you either get extraordinarily lucky or compete with everyone else for those last-second CX seats, and those may be going away at some point so then we'll be totally SOL. Don't have too much flying planned yet but a UA status challenge doesn't seem like a terrible idea at this point.