Originally Posted by
VegasGambler
I don't understand why you'd buy that $1 stick of gum on the UA card and get 1 UA mile, when you could instead buy that stick of gum on a Chase UR card (eg, CSR, CSP) and get 1 UR pt, which you have the option of converting to 1 UA mile whenever you want... OR converting to something else if that gives you more value at that time.
Even more obviously, I don't understand why you would buy a ticket on UA with a card that gives you 2 miles / dollar, when you could buy it on the CSR, get 3 UR pts per dollar (which, again, you have the option of converting to UA miles, or to something else if you can find better value). At worst, it's 50% more miles. Oh, and you get free travel insurance with the CSR too -- even if you only use it to pay taxes and fees on an award ticket.
I have the explorer card -- I just haven't had a reason to use it since I got the signup bonus. I have to decide if it's worth keeping for the benefits (probably not, but I'm not sure yet) I do use MileagePlus X pretty heavily, so the 25% bonus is nice there.
I have the Club Card so some benefit there. It indeed does have travel insurance which WAS with Chubb and was great (have used it). Baggage and boarding benefits are useless to me. As to your issue of miles to $$$ spent I now agree and will indeed be moving on as I stated. Remember you do/did get some benefits with holding the UA card and using the miles such as CPU eligibility, more discounted available flights, no/low change fees, etc.. (see wiki). But with the probably deterioration of these benefits I will probably now move over to AmEx Plat but still looking/shopping.