In hindsight, I should have just taken the morning flight on AA. Got put on UA 1517 from IAD. Between weather, crew rest issues and crew location and them parking an a319 in the wrong spot (first time I've ever seen this happen), the 10 pm departure took off at 4:28 AM.

And UA, channeling their best AA impression gave rolling delays (10:00 PM, 10:40 PM, 12:00 AM, 12:40 AM, 2:40 AM, 3:00 AM, 3:30 AM) that ensured we slept in IAD on a bench. Ugh. And to cap it off, they didn't even load our bags on a nonstop flight. Reminded me why I moved to AA from CO after the merger and another reminder that the grass isn't really greener, no matter how frustrating AA can be.