Originally Posted by wolfpacktrojan

Thankfully AS meets most of my business travel needs out of SAN, but I chose to fly UA this year when I couldn't use AS. I flew DL in 2018 when not flying AS because I thought they were the best of the legacies, and they somewhat met my travel needs (JFK, ATL). I flew enough DL to earn Silver, but I decided to switch to UA for a few reasons:

1. I switched all of my NYC flying to EWR because of the ease of getting to Midtown (AS's double miles promo didn't hurt).
2. IAH and IAD became more frequent destinations.
3. Chase UR are my preferred points system, so I thought it made more sense to earn on UA.
4. I enjoy traveling in Asia and prefer *A carriers over ST in the region.

Honestly, I would have been content with Silver just to board with Group 2 to guarantee carry-on space (I had to gate check in Group 3 quite a bit this year), but I managed to meet the PQD requirement for UA Gold quite easily. I needed a mileage run to PVG to hit the PQMs, but well worth it IMO to be able to select E+ at booking (not to mention it only cost me $260 RT). I've yet to have a poor experience on UA that many others seem to run into and am happy with my decision so far.