I reached 1K at the end of August and with a reasonably trouble-free service from UA. My flying is primarily international.

When weather canceled a segment of a flight, they rebooked all the segments and protected the upgrade to HKG the next day. When the IAD-DUS flights were canceled or delayed for days in a row just before my flight, they accommodated my request to go via LHR since I had a meeting I could not miss due to a delay or cancellation. No airline is perfect. UA was willing to work with me and I was willing to work with them.

When I flew AA several times, on the other hand, and they were ok when things went well and really bad when things didn't. They annoyed the heck out of me in almost every flight.

Now based on the above one would think it is a no-brainer. Stay loyal to UA.

But things have changed over the course of this year. UA is not competitive with AA in benefits. I don't expect them to do the things mentioned above anymore. If I had flown the same miles with AA, I would have had 8 SWUs in hand as first time EXP and 8 coming in next year. Even though AA's upgrade processing is really stupid compared to UA, I can upgrade from any fare with less miles than UA to Europe and have already traveled more times in BC on AA than UA.

UA is charging for things they weren't before and making no exceptions to 1ks unlike AA exemptions for EXPs. There is very little difference anymore in benefits between 1P and 1K in UA. If they put high fare restrictions on the SWUs in 2003 assuming we still get them (as opposed to them saying, it was a matter of practice than policy!), they will be as useless to me as the mile upgrades.

Both AA and UA are headed down the path of minimal service but the EXP status on AA still seems to mean something unlike UA. When UA is no longer able to work with me as in the past, I need to forget about loyalty and look for maximizing my benefits for my flying profile.

Sad to say AA, with all its annoying idiosyncracies, comes out ahead in terms of benefits to their top tier than UA does and although both airlines are going downhill, UA top tier just doesn't seem to be worthwhile compared to AA top tier.

Any one want to talk me out of switching to making top tier on AA next year?