Inferior to what though? Their competitor's cobrand cards? Or the premium cards, which is going to be true of basically all of the $95/yr airline cards?

UA's card isn't *that* different from the competing airlines. The main differences between the MileagePlus Explorer and say the Citi AA Platinum and Amex Delta Gold IMO are: 1) UA gives you 2 club passes a year, the other two don't give any. You can use these or resell them, I mean they're worth $15ish on ebay; 2) UA gives you access to better economy award availability on some flights, YMMV, if that's of any value; and 3) UA makes you buy your ticket with the card for a free checked bag, while AA/DL don't, so that's a bit of a ding for me.

The other competitive argument, who else would UA pair up with for a co-brand card? Every other major issuer already has an airline, or in Barclay's case they have like 4, so.... where would they go without DL or AA throwing a fit? I think UA and Chase, for better or worse, are kinda married to each other for the near/mid term.

Edit: now that I think about it, there really isn't much reason to spend on any of the normal airline cards, because if you're earning faster on other Amex/Chase products and can just transfer to Delta and United/SW, respectively, why use the airline card at all unless you're going for the PQD waiver? Chase/UA actually give you an incentive to spend because you get a 10k mile bonus if you spend $25k/yr on the card. Again, something the AA/DL cards don't have at the $95/AF level, but that's a lot of spend to put on 1 card that has no meaningful multipliers.