Originally Posted by
serialportme
Explorer Card doesn’t get priority checkin or bags, just priority boarding. Those are to things I liked about Silver. I suppose buying E+ is cheaper than any other option, but I probably will never do - I always want the least expensive flights.
You get one free bag with silver, and I'm not sure that there's any priority to it. I haven't checked bags on UA in ages, so I'm not sure if they've even gone to a tag it yourself and drop it off like everybody else, but I've done that on AS and WN to check bikes (UA charges so much to take a bike that it's cheaper to fly anybody else, and AS treats bikes like regular bags) and not had to deal with any kind of lines. And get precheck or global entry to get through the TSA lines, even the explorer card offers it as a benefit now - don't bother with the premier lines.
As far as priority check-in, if you're Silver you have to check in at T-24+.000001 seconds anyway to snag your E+ seat. I got so used to doing that for years on UA that I still do it on AS, even though you get their version of E+ at T-48 at their Silver equivalent level.
Last week for the holidays I flew UA out on an award ticket, and DL back on an award ticket from Chase. I got free E+ on UA, and I used some DL miles that I've had sitting around for a long time to upgrade my seat to C+ and it wasn't so bad. If you want the perks, buy a ticket that isn't Basic Economy and then get them a la carte. It's cheaper than doing a lot of extra flying to get status that doesn't give you a lot of benefits, and it takes up a lot less of your time. When I switched back to flying a lot on UA several years ago after not flying a lot, I'd lapsed back to general member, and the E+ subscription plus Explorer card worked pretty well. It also gets you E+ at booking (like Gold) instead of at T-24.