Originally Posted by
mobarak
Lots of interesting points and counter points here. Thank you for engaging. All major airlines have GPU (or equivalent) policies for a reason: those loyal flyers account for a large share of the airlines' business.
You do realize AA and DL SEVERELY restrict the earning of those certificates, where on UA the earning of GPU is unlimited (RPU's were unlimited until this year) so one could say you have a lot more competition for using them as well. I know I generally use all of mine every year (12-16 typically) and extremely happy with the program. So far you have mentioned one data point, how many other times have you tried and not been able to use etc. SFO-SIN is extremely difficult to use, period. Alot of EU destinations as well, but some EU destinations are extremely easy to use, so fly there, then take a train or a small hop to get where you are going. I know this wasn't an option flying to AKL, but using a single data point to say the 1K program and GPU use in general sucks is a bit short sighted.
There is a thread labeled GPU and RPU are worthless, but as yours actually worked, you can't post in that thread for this particular instance, AA and DL forums have the same thread as well.