Originally Posted by
FullFare
After another thread some months ago, I and others remarked that UA was heavily promoting their Global Service status as a combined perk if one purchased their Pass Plus Plan with an initial spend of $50K. The UA agent I dealt with was very cordial and knowledgeable, to the point where I left a message with Kirby commending him. I said I wold give a f/u on how GS was working after I tried it, so here goes.
I have been a lifetime AA AAirpass holder since 1994. I had a $40-$50K annual spend, over and beyond what I had sunk in for the initial Aairpass (about $190K). I was told no dice, in both cases with very curt responses. What got worse was the decrease of service out of the SF Bay Area on AA. We were down to 2 non-stops a day to ORD, with one of them a red-eye. UA had at least 10. I wound up spending substantial sums on competing carriers such as UA, AS, and even DL. I and spouse simply needed to get where we needed to, with a major preference for non-stops. So, the UA offers of GS status appealed to me and I took it. I have even flying them now for 6 weeks and the non-stop service out of SFO has been quite helpful. I still use the Airpass on SFO-JFK because UA (unwisely, IMHO) abandoned the route. I have over 800,000 actual AA miles to use, but doubt I will live long enough to use them.
Anyway, the GS status has been quite nice, and I have enjoyed Polaris to LHR and am scheduled to use it to CDG next month. They did leave me high and dry on Super Bowl Sunday by delaying my 787 4 hrs because they had to do a plane swap. They apologized and gave us very nice vouchers.
All in all, the decision, although unhappy at the outset, has worked OK for spouse and me. I do find UA's pricing on some routes, like SFO-EWR, to be way over the competition, such as AS, on similar routes. No big problem, since I have never liked transiting EWR. AS serves to keep UA part-way accountable out out of the SF Bay Area. We are also looking forward to heading to Hawaii, Australia, and Tahiti without having to go down through LAX. AS had been a pleasure to have out of SJC to Hawaii with their service to all 4 islands. A 12 minute Uber from the house.
So, the transition has been OK to GS although I am destined to leave some $$ on the table with my prior AA contract. I can't compare GS to CK because I never knew the light of day as CK. In the final analysis, I am getting the level of service and flight selection that I need. I have found that there are a lot of GS folks waiting to board UA flights out of SFO. I think on the SFO-ORD 787 we flew a week ago there were about a dozen in the line for GS boarding. Very friendly people.
Will follow up as time goes by
G'day
Ok, I’ll bite. I recall reading at least one of your prior posts on the topic also.
As a current CK, I’ll start by saying that I really hope I won’t still be thinking about it for years if I lose it (maybe I will be, who knows). Most of the time, it’s really nice, but it’s probably not worth agonizing over it decades later, IMHO. I do get the sense from what you're describing that it was mostly the manner in which you say AA responsed to your inquires that just really irked you and stuck with you over time.
That said, it seems you clearly felt you were meeting the spend/profitability criteria (and I assume you’ve done enough research over the years to have a fair idea of those), so I think you have to consider that you may not have passed a manual review for some reason. I’ve always made the assumption that they probably generate a list of potentially acceptable candidates based on whatever the chosen criteria for that year are and then manually whittle through them to select final candidates. I've even wondered whether getting rid of Airpass CKs and allegedly clamping down on corporate CK sponsorships has anything to do with keeping certain customers out who were getting in via means that are somewhat outside AA's control.
It’s definitely not an entirely automated process, so have you considered the fact that you were blacklisted early on for some reason? Did you ever have a large argument with someone senior at AA over something? Have you filed a lawsuit or submitted a DOT complaint against the airline? Have you ever been removed from a plane for being intoxicated or creating some sort of other disturbance? Have you ever had a pattern of being overly rude to phone or airport/lounge agents or aggressively asking for exceptions? I’m absolutely not accusing you of any of these things - just saying that there must be something else (perhaps much more benign than my examples) that is being manually reviewed if you think you clearly met the criteria otherwise. Nothing else would really make sense, right?
Originally Posted by
Herb687
I'd rather not drop a few dozen Gs on any US Part 121 airline but if I had to I'd probably continue to drop them on the one that offers the most convenient schedule/network and/or highest quality product for a given route I must fly. And that best choice is likely to differ from trip to trip. Though for someone in the Bay Area it's probably going to favor UA over AA for most trips.
No airline status whatsoever would make me book AA on a route where AA flies only standard narrowbodies against UA lie-flat widebodies. The reverse is also true, of course. UA could make me Highest Most Exalted Global Services Plus Of All and I'd still book the AA 787 DFW-LAX instead of the UA 319 or UAX Embraer.
Status should never get in the way of booking the best product or the most convenient schedule. And the more Gs one drops on airline tickets, the more freedom one should have to just book the best.
Originally Posted by
Dave Noble
Regardless, it wouldn't be making sense to use one airline where another airline better serves your destination
I suspect if/when I lose CK, I’ll mostly become a free agent. I may still consider putting $200k a year on AA credit cards (or more likely a mix of CC spend, occasional flights, and other LP earning) to keep EP as long as benefits aren’t watered down too much at that point. Then again, I'm not sure being a low loyalty point EP will be worth it, given how easy it is to attain the status now if you're set on doing it.
Since UA/GS are being discussed here also, even as a CK, if I’m flying a route like ORD-SFO where UA clearly has better options and a widebody lie-flat seat in J, I’m probably going to cough up the cash to UA on my Amex PLT instead of an AA card. If routes are otherwise fairly equal between airline choices, though (similar times/planes/service), AA will always get my business for the CK benefits. Similarly, if it’s a connecting itinerary, and I have my choice of connection cities, the ability to visit an AA Flagship Lounge and/or potentially get CK meet and greet connection assistance will result in AA getting my business.
To the OP -- I hope that UA GS via Pass Plus gives you an outlet of sorts for the frustration AA CK has caused you. I get it -- now having experienced a program’s true top tier, it’s definitely a neat thing to be part of the club. As mentioned above, I may just become more of a free agent if I lose it, but GS is also an option I’d consider, only if it made sense at the time in all aspects (routing/times, pricing, service, seating, lounges, etc.).