Originally Posted by pgary
I really like United Airlines.
- One of its major hubs is San Francisco.
- It is very easy to earn miles by means other than flying. For example, take a look at the free 20,000 mile credit card offer I list on the Credit Card > Annual Fee cards page of my website below.
- If you ever decide to fly internationally, the Star Alliance is the best in the business.
I really hate to disagree with pgary, but I really hate United because:
(1) Whenever I call a CSR (as a 2P) they are based in India and pretty much useless
(you can search the UA forum for incident reports). So far no outsourcing at AA. ^
(2) UA charges $50 per 500 miles to upgrade, much higher than AA ($30 per 500mi for elites). On a transcon roundtrip, you will save $200 with AA.
(3) UA has so many elite members who use SFO that your chances of being upgraded are low, particularly if you are 2P or even 1P. However on AA I rarely have trouble upgrading from SFO even as a lowly Gold.
You can see where I'm going with this. I think AA service for elites is far superior than UA's service from SFO. AA also has great daily service to JFK with several nonstops (as opposed to connecting at DFW or ORD).
So why do I still fly UA? Well, as pgary noted, SFO is a UA hub, so generally you will find the best schedule options on UA (and better options in the event of irregular ops). But more importanly, UA offers E+ seating (free to elites) and the extra 5" of legroom is a huge + when you are not flying in F. For SFO-JFK, UA also offers PS service, which means you will never get stuck in an E- seat.
In the end, UA is the easy choice from a convenience perspective, but you should consider AA if it makes sense for your travel patterns. AA also offers expedited elite status after flying as little as 5000 miles (check the AA forum for details on the "challenge).