Originally Posted by
giblet
My parents are in their 70s and fly often between SFO-NYC-MXP or combinations therein. They are constantly flying Norwegian or Air Italy and then complaining about how horrible it is. Because they do 2 round trips to Italy each year, and between 2-6 SFO-NYC flights, I think they should pick an airline or alliance and try and stick to it and get status. They usually fly economy but after their last flight are now thinking of starting to fly Premium Economy or Business, and they are also willing to use LHR as a hub and take cheapie flight to Milan.
Based on the above, is there any benefit to choosing UA over AA?
The only one I can think is that UA waives the spend requirement for those with an overseas address (they have both). Any other differences we should factor in? I know questions like this are boring, but your expertise would be appreciated.
As others have stated, the only status they're going to get is something low-mid tier. Kind of a waste of time if you ask me, especially for people booking W or J.
With such travel patterns, I would personally use B6 Mint for SFO-JFK and EK for JFK-MXP. All miles could be credited to B6 or to EK and both J products are about as good as you're going to get. Other than this, Delta would be my second choice. In general, UA isn't great however still better than the disAAster.