Originally Posted by
ajeleonard
It’s still better than the other alliances where the highest alliance-wide status is effectively business class ground handling. At least where first class facilities are still available OWE can use them
I pretty much agree with that. Where First Class facilities are available, there is a differentiation (JFK and LHR are the places where I experienced it). I flew AY and AA recently and I was given J class drinks flying Y, or free drinks in case of AA domestic, and some other small perks like that. If I'm not mistaken, on AA OWE will have a boarding group number ahead of OWS.
This might sound silly, but one thing that is still a clear differentiation to me for OWE is ASR. I fly mostly Y and I'm OWE through LATAM. Earlier in the year I flew a lot of AA and BA, and I could reserve my Y seat as early as booking, and choose extra leg room seats (which both AA and BA charge extra for) at no cost. As I'm no longer living in South America and moved to Germany, I have switched to UA and have become UA 1k, or *A Gold. If *A had 3-tier status like OW, that would mean I would probably be on the top tier with the UA 1k status. Occasionally I have to fly LH and I can't even reserve seats before check-in unless I pay for it. It looks like the two-tier level of *A doesn't allow the differentiation that OW three-tier level can get. This is the one perk I miss from my OWE status that I don't get on *A.