ConnectMiles after the split
 

I apologize for a vanity post. I'm looking for some opinions after the split from MileagePlus. The program split seems to be a disaster for me, and I assume for other MileagePlus Latin American flyers.

For the past few years I have been UA 1K, earning about 50k miles each on Copa and United. I am based in PTY and fly to Latin American a lot, and to other continents a few times a year. I don't know whether to stay with one program or the other or maintain two accounts.

Here are my travel bullet points:

When flying CM, I really, really appreciate the upgrades. I can say that in 8 years as an elite, upgrades are above 95%. Awesome for the 5+ hour flights to southern South America.

I have 700k+ miles on United and would appreciate million miler status. Accrual is going to drop even if I stick with MileagePlus.

When flying UA for business, the company pays for business class, so not too worried about upgrades.

When flying UA for leisure, it's with my family (and almost always PTY-IAH, then on a UX), where upgrades are not as important.

Baggage allowance through UA Gold is very useful. (3 x 70 lbs vs. 1 x 50 as a UA CC holder). Ability to book in E+ for my family (instead of just 1 as a UA Gold) is nice, but frankly I'm the only one who appreciates the extra legroom.

ConnectMiles will give me upgrade instruments that could help alleviate a lack of CPUs on UA.

As I think this through, upgrades through ConnectMiles are far and away the greatest benefit to me. I believe I will remain a ConnectMiles Gold or better in the coming years, and I think that will get me upgraded most of the time, but that remains to be seen how their separate program plays out.

Now that I write this all out I am down to two options:
1. Use my ConnectMiles account for everything, and abandon MileagePlus, or
2. Maintain my two separate accounts.

So, I'm looking for opinions. Am I missing something?

I am going to be Copa silver through my credit card. I have the United Club credit card which offers a lot of benefits and ability to earn a lot United miles. But I would rather earn connect miles. Award travel is less on a few of the routes I use. All my travel will be credited to Copa. Mileage plus will just be used to book award travel hopefully as much as possible for others.

Do you care about redeeming award miles? Because that's an issue with ConnectMiles (poor IT, poor phone support), and I suspect it always will be.

To me that is the single biggest negative of the CM program. I really value using my UA miles for *A redemptions, and the relative ease of use of the UA award booking engine (which, despite endless complaints on the UA forum, is probably best in the world).